262: Change Your Mindset, Reframe Your Future

Lisa Lewis-Miller 00:03
I imagine there are many people in the HTYC family who are in this crossroads moment of, it's time to make some new goals. Either because the old ones didn't fit, or because you achieved them, blew them out of the water and you need the next thing.

Introduction 00:23
This is the Happen To Your Career podcast, with Scott Anthony Barlow. We help you stop doing work that doesn't fit you, figure out what does and make it happen. We help you define the work that's unapologetically you, and then go get it. If you're ready to make a change, keep listening. Here's Scott. Here's Scott. Here's Scott.

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:47
This is Scott Anthony Barlow, and you are listening to Happen To Your Career, the show that helps you figure out what work fits you by exploring others' stories. We get to bring on all kinds of experts like Chris Guillebeau, who believes everyone should have a side hustle. For people that have a pretty amazing stories like Tanya Malcolm Revell, who took the time to create her own career profile, and made it happen, and now works for her dream company. These are people that are just like you, they've gone from where they are, to what they really want to be doing. Today, we have back on the podcast, Lisa Lewis.

Lisa Lewis-Miller 01:24
That sense of purpose and meaning that comes from setting a finish line for yourself, you know, seeing the goalposts and knowing how you want to direct your focus, your energy, your time, your efforts, can be so helpful. And without it, that sort of when you get into that feeling of adriftness and unmooredness, where you just feel like the waves of life keep slapping you in the face over and over again, and you don't know how to get out of them.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:50
Happy New Year. Today, we get pretty deep in conversation, or how to completely reframe your future. So we talk specifically about how to take the goals that you're passionate about and excited about, and take the next little steps to be able to turn them into a reality this year. And we talk about how to change your limiting beliefs from a negative into a positive, and even how to recognize those as well. And how to use confirmation bias as a benefit to gain goal success. Really, really interesting on that one. So you can leverage psychology to be able to make it work for your advantage for yourself, you can actually play tricks on yourself, listen for that. And I think that you'll love that one. It's about halfway through. Okay, also we talk about, me and Lisa, go into how important it is to put the words and vocalize the ideas that you've been feeling, even if it's just a whisper. So I'll even share what we mean by that and how it works, and how it works into the whole psychology piece of it too.

Tracy 03:00
I was sort of scattered from a day to day and week to week perspective, like, I didn't look at my week every week and say, "I know exactly when I'm going to do this, this, and this activity or have this, this, and this meeting."

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:12
This is Tracy. She wanted to build her own business but found herself stuck.

Tracy 03:17
The business had reached a certain level but I also had some family issues that are very sick parent.

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:21
You get to hear Tracy story later on in the episode to learn how to use coaching to help her finally figure out how to make everything fit.

Tracy 03:28
What you allowed me to do was create the career that I wanted to facilitate the lifestyle that mattered the most to me.

Lisa Lewis-Miller 03:37
Hey, Scott. It is great to be back on the HTYC podcast with you and I'm so excited to get to talk to you about one of my favorite things in the whole world, which is dreaming, scheming, visioning and goal setting. And with the beginning of 2018 upon us, it seems like there is no better time to think about recalibrating, refreshing, reframing and focusing for the year ahead. So I know you happen to be a particularly future oriented strategic person.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:07
Not at all.

Lisa Lewis-Miller 04:09
I've seen your strength finder, I know this is true.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:12
Dang it. Okay, now you got me.

Lisa Lewis-Miller 04:15
So now that I've got your number dialed in here, I want to know, just like I mentioned a lot of the HTYC community wants to know, when you are dreaming and scheming about the year end and thinking about what's on deck for 2018, when do you even start it? What do you have in mind?

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:30
Oh my goodness. So much. Here's the condition in which I'm answering this though. I'm gonna turn the question around on you as soon as I get finished answering this. Fair?

Lisa Lewis-Miller 04:38
Deal.

Scott Anthony Barlow 04:39
Hard to say no, like, in the middle of recording a podcast. No, I don't know, I don't really want to do that. Okay, so that's what we're gonna do. That's the plan. We have, well, Alyssa and I don't really separate out life from work, if you will. We kind of look at all of that intertwined. And for us, it is. Maybe not for everybody, but for us that's how we've created our lives at this point and how we've designed the setup of our lives. So very much one depends on another and we have a tendency to look at it holistically, sometimes we'll break it into categories, and have different goals for different areas of each section of our life. But beyond that, that's kind of where we start. So we have something that we've been working on for, oh my goodness, over a year now, coming up that I'm pretty excited about and was tied into my 2017 goals, too. So we are taking a trip to London, and Ireland, and Scotland for about a month, and we are taking the kids, last year... and we've resolved this is something we want to continue doing as long as it fits well into our life, and we're enjoying it. But we've resolved to, every year, pull the kids out of school, or just pull them away from whatever's going on, and go and essentially uproot ourselves and go live in another country for a month. So we did that last year, in Paris. And in the country of France, it turns out and that was a ton of fun. So we're like, "hey, let's do that again." And that is one of our goals for 2018. So right now, our tentative dates are end of April. And we're going to go and meet a whole... actually, this is fun, too, been emailing with people for quite a while now that live in London. So we're gonna try and meet as many people that we've worked with, because we actually have a lot of clients and students in the UK, as it turns out.

Lisa Lewis-Miller 06:48
That's so awesome. I am so jealous. I've worked with a couple and they are just the raddest of rad humans.

Scott Anthony Barlow 06:54
Yeah. Oh, my goodness, I think we've even had a couple on the podcast. Well, we had Tanya on the podcast, I know for sure, and I want to say maybe one more person too, but it totally escaping me right now. Yeah, you can hear more about Tanya's episode and the work that Lisa got to do with her and her whole story and how she relocated to the UK and everything that goes along with it. It's pretty amazing, actually. So that's one of our goals. And we also have some really, really ambitious goals around the people that we want to help and how we want to help them with Happen To Your Career too. So we have a lot tied up into that. And we have a some new program goals that we're anticipating releasing inside 2018. So I'm very excited for that. And we've got a whole bunch of stuff behind the scenes in terms of how we're improving how we help people. And I've been... in 2017, one of the things that I had resolved to do was read nearly every happiness book I could find that was a conglomeration of research and work on happiness. So I'm excited in 2018 to take a ton of that research and embedded into our programs. So that's a small taste.

Lisa Lewis-Miller 08:18
That is cool. Can I be nosy and ask a follow up question about those ambitious goals for the type of people that we want Happen To Your Career to be able to serve and help?

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:29
Yes, what is your question?

Lisa Lewis-Miller 08:31
I just want to know more. Tell me the type of goal around who we want to strap a jet pack on that is getting you so excited and jazzed for the year ahead.

Scott Anthony Barlow 08:43
Oh, well, one of the things that I've realized is, as we've created some of our different programs, we've created them for people in certain spots, certain areas of life. And I have recently realized, you and I have had conversations about this too, that for those people that are incredibly ambitious, and are used to performing at a very high rate, but have recently realized that they want their life to be different than how they've set it up and want to work towards making that happen. And this is what we've called, well, some people have called it lifestyle design, life architecting, we've referred to it in a couple of different fashions, I was trying to look up the podcast episode where you and I did in fact.

Lisa Lewis-Miller 09:38
The life crafting episode. I can't remember what the number is, but we'll definitely put it into the show notes and the blog post for this episode.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:45
Yeah, search Happen To Your Career and life crafting and it'll pop right up on iTunes and then you can take a listen. But folks that are really in that place where they have, well, you and I were just talking about this before we even hit record, right. We've checked out some of the boxes and met some of our goals and got there. And it's like, what's next? Right? So ironically, that is the folks that we're very interested in helping with their problems and really building out and refining their life in different ways, too. So that's going to be a ton of fun.

Lisa Lewis-Miller 10:22
Awesome, awesome. So it's people who are pretty ambitious, pretty successful, but have checked all those boxes for themselves is what we're looking for the next thing, you know, how do they expand, grow, contribute more deeply, live more in alignment with their values, that type of person.

Scott Anthony Barlow 10:41
Yeah. And how do they go from where they're at to what feels like flourishing to them?

Lisa Lewis-Miller 10:48
Oh, yeah, oh, that's such a good way for us to dive into talking about 2018 goals and goal setting and framing for everybody who's listening. But I know that you threw down the gauntlet with me to tell a little bit about my own goals for 2018. So...

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:04
Yes, so we're going to do that first. And then we can talk about flourishing, and 2018 all that you want to, but what's going on in your world and you and I have, I don't know that we've gotten to have this conversation outside of this. So this good. Two birds one stone.

Lisa Lewis-Miller 11:25
That phrase, for all of you listening is courtesy of a dear friend of mine, Christine, because she felt like two birds one stone was a little violent for her day. So two birds one stone it is. So the way that I think about goal planning... goal setting and life planning for myself, is I almost imagine it like a mind map. So I have different centers that I focus around, which sounds like it's very different from the way that you and Alyssa, think about your more integrated version of life and work planning. But for me, I think about things in these different discrete buckets of health and fitness, relationships, spirituality, personal development, business, different things like that. So some of the places, some of those different centers of idea generation have a lot more momentum and excitement and energy for them right now. Like after having got back from my 95 day test drive of what it is like to work remotely, work abroad, coming back, like we were talking about, I felt like I had just checked a whole bunch of boxes and achieved a whole bunch of the dreams that I had for my own life and all of a sudden was facing this identity crisis and panic of, who am I if I'm not the person who is saving up for this amazing trip abroad, and, you know, selling all of her worldly possessions and going off on this grand adventure. And so what I'm really finding that my soul is craving for 2018 is to lean into learning and growth and new skills. So when I think about the health and fitness focus of goal setting for myself...

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:09
Let me guess, you're taking up parkour.

Lisa Lewis-Miller 13:11
No, I will let you do all those crazy conga vaults all on your own over there. But what comes up for me is that I have been playing beach volleyball.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:22
Oh, you have?

Lisa Lewis-Miller 13:23
There is an indoor beach volleyball facility in Colorado, which is the coolest thing, there are a couple actually and they are the coolest thing in the entire world. And I get such a rush from playing. And I know I have so much to learn from going, from being passable and able to be on a four player team pretty easily to being able to play doubles really well and to be able to be a great partner whether it's in coed or women's. So I'm really excited about the idea of conditioning, practicing, training, going to clinics, and really investing in my body and my health in that way. And I'm also thinking about, if there is a Cuban Salsa Dancing Community here in Colorado because I discovered Cuban Salsa Dancing of all places in Bali and add a fall doing it. And so now I'm looking for... are there other communities in the United States that have that same interest, that same skill set because apparently there are a lot of different versions of Salsa and Cuban Salsa is not one of the more common ones. So I'm excited to do some sleuthing and see what and who I can find in that community here to help advance that goal for myself.

Scott Anthony Barlow 14:38
Total side note, if you know anything about Cuban Salsa Dancing in Colorado, then email Lisa, lisa@happentoyourcareer.com. Okay, moving on.

Lisa Lewis-Miller 14:51
So that's where I have lots of energy and fire and excitement around my goal setting. I have goals for my business. I have goals for other things, like, personal development and sort of one part personal about that one part spirituality, one part creativity is that I really want to learn how to play guitar.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:09
Do you really?

Lisa Lewis-Miller 15:10
I do.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:11
Oh my goodness. We can... okay, so context if you didn't already know, all of our team is spread all over the country, sometimes all over the world, depending on where we're at. And with that, I guess we could set up like a remote band. Did you know I play guitar?

Lisa Lewis-Miller 15:31
No, I didn't know you play guitar.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:33
How have we not talked about that? You've been to my house. Like those guitars sitting there, those are mine. Well, except for one, one is my son's.

Lisa Lewis-Miller 15:42
That is amazing. Okay, so we're going to offer the Happen To Your Career remote guitar lesson. That's the 2018 offering, the flaunting. You're hearing it here first.

Scott Anthony Barlow 15:51
All the goals have to change. Sorry, we are sweeping them aside so that Lisa can learn guitar. It's about priorities, folks. Okay, so we've got the guitar, we've got the beach volleyball, we've got some goals for your business, got goals for some other things around that. That is super, super cool. Now, what about everybody else's goals? Because everybody listening here probably has some things that they want to accomplish in the new year, too. Right? Is that fair to say?

Lisa Lewis-Miller 16:21
Yeah, oh, absolutely. And I think that every time that you or I start working with a new coaching client, we have this same process, the same set of questions pop up about, okay, "What are we doing here? Why are we working together? What is it that is burning inside of you, that is just desperate to get out into the world?" Even if it is this burning fire, with some asterisks next to it, because that's usually where we are able to make the most meaningful difference in somebody's life through coaching, is in helping to address those asterisks, because so many of the people who come to us... come to us with, I don't know if it's a secret dream, or something they maybe haven't articulated to other people in their life, because it feels so scary to speak it into reality in the universe, because it would require such a magnificent, but also terrifying amount of change and transformation in their life to do that, you know, we get the honor and the privilege of being a safe space to actually explore what that might look like for somebody. But the reason why we talk to people so much about goal setting, and why it becomes this sort of big thing is because usually with the sort of things that you care enough about to turn into a goal, and you turn into a goal that you actually want to do, as opposed to those should goals that we put on ourselves about, "I should went town. Or, I should call my mom more often" and like, if you don't have passion and excitement, and like a heart tie to that, then let's not worry about that. Let's not do goal setting around that. Let's talk about the ones that have that fire and that lifeforce inside of you. And that help you to grow and expand into the person that you want to be. But usually those goals have some challenge, and they require some big changes out of you. And so I think it's cool with you, Scott, that we can talk a bit about setting those big, hairy, scary, exciting goals, identifying what those asterisks are, that make it feel like it might be maybe a little bit impossible, or that there might be some circumstances in your life that could keep that from happening for you. And then talking about all the radical and yet subtle, simple things that you can do to set yourself up for success in achieving those in 2018.

Scott Anthony Barlow 18:41
Yes, yes, we should do that. In fact, let's do it. And really quick before we move into that, just want to call out the point you made about, so many people have, I'm now thinking of the fire with the asterisk, like, who knows, maybe that might find its way onto our website, "here's the fire, it's got an asterisk next to it" or something along those lines. Either way, speaking it into reality, whatever that is, and being able to get the motion going, often that is the first barrier and what's really, really interesting, I think that most of the people that we've had, that we've worked with in some capacity on the podcast, it started from that, like, being willing to actively take whatever you felt for a long time but then admit that you have been feeling it for a long time, maybe that's a way to say it, speak it into reality. I'm thinking of Matt Toy who came on the podcast and the first conversation I ever had with him, he had shared with me, "Hey, I would love to start a yoga business for guys." And he was totally afraid of it and made a bunch of excuses at the time to not do it, and then now, you know, a year and a half later, he's doing it. Like that's what he's doing, he's earning money from it, and all kinds of stuff like that. We got countless stories like that. But that seems like that is really the first step and a good kicking off point for this new year because to be able to... even go after it and address barriers around it or anything else, like it has to be spoken into reality.

Lisa Lewis-Miller 20:26
Yeah, absolutely. And I think the point that you made about Matt having sort of heard this call, and then rejecting it, or making excuses about it, or telling himself he couldn't do it is such a common experience. I mean, oh my goodness, how many of us have had that fleeting thought of, "I want to write a book", or "I want to run a marathon", or "I want to start my own business", and then dismiss it out of hand to say, "Oh, well, I couldn't do that, you know, someone like me could never do that. I don't have the time. I'm too busy. Bla bla bla..."

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:03
I'm not the type of person that does that.

Lisa Lewis-Miller 21:07
Yeah. But I encourage you, if you were sitting here listening to this podcast, and when we're talking about these secret dreams or those little whispers running through your mind about the "what ifs" and the things that have called out to you, that if there was any time in life that felt like the appropriate moment to actually honor that, and give it the possibility of becoming a reality for you, that the advent of a new year, the advent of a new you is absolutely the moment to see what could happen, what might be possible there.

Tracy 21:50
Had reached a point in my business that I had gotten to largely through sweat equity, just dragging it out, doing the research by myself, figuring it out on my own.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:00
Tracy's business had plateaued and was keeping her from what mattered most to her. When she signed up for coaching with HTYC, she identified who she needed help from.

Tracy 22:11
The business had reached a certain level, but I also had some family issues that are very sick parent. So in my mind, I wanted to create workflows and efficiencies, and extra revenue that would allow me to take the time with that parent that was really meaningful to me.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:28
Tracy was able to set up a business for success and give her time with her love ones.

Tracy 22:33
And I had reached a point where I knew that I wanted some more professional help. And particularly, I wanted help from somebody whose life I admired and whose business I admire. Our work together really helped me systematize, you took all the risk away, you took all the fear away. And from that point on, you know, I was really diligent using our time really well and making sure that we got the most out of it. But so were you.

Scott Anthony Barlow 22:56
Congratulations to Tracy on creating a business and a life that works for her. If you want to find out how to do exactly the same thing, create a business and build it so that it suits your life and lifestyle, and it also lights you up and gives you purpose at the same time, well, turns out, we can help. Find out how coaching can help you do that step by step, go over to happentoyourcareer.com and click on Career Coaching to apply. Or you can text MYCOACH, that's MYCOACH to 44222. Pause right now, and we'll send over the application. Just text MYCOACH to 44222.

Tracy 23:34
The fact that I got to spend an incredible guilt free amount of time with a sick and dying parent who's no longer here is priceless.

Scott Anthony Barlow 23:51
Okay, so we have that in mind, let's assume, let's fast forward a little bit, and then assume that people have already began to declare some of those things that they have been harnessing the flame with the asterisk for... this is gonna get real funny real fast. But whatever it is, let's let's assume for a minute, let's fast forward and assume that you've already got some of those goals, or some of those challenges, or some of those you already know or at least have an understanding of what it is that you might want to accomplish, do, check off experience, I'm running out of verbiage, for 2018. Is that fair to say? Is that still to the part where we can jump in here?

Lisa Lewis-Miller 24:44
Absolutely. And I think for our community in particular, two of the biggest ones that we tend to hear are: number one, I want to start working for myself in some capacity, whether it is a side hustle or full on entrepreneurship. And number two is, I want to go from good or mediocre to great in my work. I want to be working for a company that aligns with my values, I want to get paid more to do what I'm doing. And both of those sorts of big radical changes definitely come with lots of potential little asterisks. So to dive on in to the first step to making something like that actually happen for you in your life this year, you know, not three years from now, not a decade from now, but taking the reins, is you got to identify what those little asterisks are for you. I think about this as identifying the challenge gauntlet ahead of you, "What are those little secret beliefs? What are the stories you've been telling yourself about what you are and are not capable of that have probably been the excuses or roadblocks that have kept you from getting started or being as wildly successful as you want to be up until now?"

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:00
Yeah, you know, I was, and we've got an episode coming up. And I know you know her story very intimately. But in a few weeks here, you'll hear an episode with Laura Morrison, who very ironically, last year, at this time, she had finally acknowledged that she was ready to move on from her role. And in January, beginning of January, declared that look, "I'm going to do this. By the end of the year, I am going to have another job that I want to be in, and no more of this tolerating at the same space, because I don't know how to proceed" no more of that. And take a listen to that that'll come up here in a few weeks. But it strikes me as very, very much a great story. Because she was in that same place. She was already getting well paid, very well compensated, and she had a lot of flexibility, had a lot of things that are fairly desirable for people, quite frankly. But she was still in that toleration standpoint. And she had been for a couple of years.

Lisa Lewis-Miller 27:09
Oh, yeah, Laura story is so great. I'm so excited for you guys to all get a chance to listen to it. But one of the things that, oftentimes, especially for someone who is being well paid, has a lot of flexibility, you know, on the outside has a job that looks pretty darn good to everybody who's sitting outside looking in, is one of the biggest challenges, or the biggest stories that we tell ourselves is, you know, well, this is a good job, anybody else would be jealous of this, you know, I look really successful. And when you have one of those sort of statements about how the world is supposed to work, you know, that you have gotten into this position that seems so great on the outside, and you just must not be appreciative enough, or you just must not be grateful and acknowledging what's going on in your world, that can be such an insidious story that will just... that will be the biggest fire extinguisher for that fire that you can imagine. So identifying that you're telling yourself a story, that because this job might be perfect for someone else, you have to settle and you have to deal with it, despite parts of your soul that are yearning and craving to get to do something bigger, do something different, do something more, having a sense that that's one of the stories that's running in your head, is a great way to start to evolve from feeling limited by that story, to having a sort of intellectual curiosity about that story and opening up new possibilities for yourself. And Scott, I bet you have tons of examples of the different types of insidious little stories that people will tell themselves that keep them stuck. I mean, especially, from when you and Alyssa went to Paris with the kids for a month, that's not something that everybody just up and does. And I bet that you guys probably had some of those secret stories and limiting beliefs crop up for yourselves or you had other people share those with you too.

Scott Anthony Barlow 29:06
Yeah, absolutely. And in our case, we have been talking about... we've been talking about, hey, these are places that I want to visit for, I don't know, like, 10 years, something along those lines, a really long time, right? 8 or 10 years. And that kept cropping up over and over again and we just... we pretty much wrote it off for a very very, very long time, like "Oh, you know, nobody can do that. Like, there's a few people that inherited money and trust fund babies or something like that. They could totally do that but not us." And we... that's the story, and the script that we would tell ourselves a lot of the time. And here's another good one, too. You mentioned running like half marathons or something like that, too, for many years, Alyssa said the same thing over and she's like, "It'd be really cool to run half marathon." But she... behind the scenes would very much think... "You know, I'm not a runner. I don't do that. That's not what I do. I don't do that. And I couldn't do that. I couldn't do that, because I would take all the time, and then I'd have to train for it." and all kinds of other things would pop into her head. And we had many conversations about it. And then eventually, at some point, honestly, I just got tired of it. I'm like, "Look, you've been talking about this for five years. Let's just go and do it. Like, I'll train with you. It'll be a pain in the ass, yes, but let's go and do it." And then we looked up a Couch to 5k, and that was the first half marathon that we run. Now, since then, she's done, I don't know, like five or six or something along those lines. But yeah, same set of stories. And there's other beliefs too. And, you know, you wrote out a really, really good piece of, well, a good article, I guess, is actually what it was. And you had described a whole bunch of the stories. And these were things like, "Hey, I could never take a sabbatical for two months and go and travel" or "People just don't quit. They don't just up and quit a job at Facebook or Google, you know, the king or queen of all companies to be able to just move to a smaller company, nobody does that. Why would they do that?" Especially a smaller company that has better work life boundaries, and other things, too, like, "Hey, you know what, we couldn't possibly start a business this year, that takes a ton of money." And, you know, all of the things, right?

Lisa Lewis-Miller 31:34
Yeah. And words like that have such power in our lives. And when we put those ideas and those beliefs out there into the world, there is this principle from the world of psychology called "Confirmation Bias", where once you have a belief about the way that the world works, your brain almost subconsciously start looking for all of the confirming evidence to prove that that is true and treat it more like a fact than a belief. And so I imagined that when you and Alyssa were talking about going to France, and but you were thinking, "Oh, nobody does that" you probably found a million different examples of people who had not done that.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:10
Oh yeah. Weirdly so. Same way that when you buy a new Honda, or something like that, you see Honda's everywhere, which is a slightly different type of bias, but it works and functions the same way. Now, conversely, what was really interesting, as soon as we decided we were going to go, there was we decided about, like, 18 months, and then we're like, "Oh, crap, like, now we've got to, like, save and pay for this" and everything else along those lines. And we started to find ways that that could happen and would happen, because we had committed to that on a psychological level too. So works both ways. You can use it to your advantage, too.

Lisa Lewis-Miller 32:51
Yes, absolutely. Well, I think we'll probably get to that here in a second, too. But those... when you realize that you have those stories, and words have power, and that you're probably looking for data points that support that. And then you are able to play a mind trick on yourself, and start to make the opposite argument and start to then use confirmation bias to start looking for the opposite data points, it's incredible, the sorts of things that you can find. So when you think about Jedi mind tricks that one can play on oneself, in psychology this is typically called a cognitive reframe. So where you take a thought, like nobody goes, and live in Paris for a month, or nobody would leave someplace like Facebook or Google in pursuit of something better. And you flip it on a TED to say, "Well, some people do. Who does this?" or "How could I do this?" or "What are some examples of people who have made this kind of change in their lives?" And just turning it from being a definitive closed ended statement into a curiosity and a question and something that's a little bit more explorational...

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:05
Explorational-atory.

Lisa Lewis-Miller 34:10
It's something that is open to possibilities, the way that you and Alyssa did where you said, "Okay, we've made this commitment. Now, how are we going to make it happen? And how do we get creative to save the money and set up our business systems and structures so that we can travel and not have that be a huge hit to our family, our life, our kids, etc?" You started to make some incredible things happen for yourself.

Scott Anthony Barlow 34:35
So let me make sure I understand this mind trick that you're referring to. So you're saying take this story that I've been telling myself, whatever it is, and instead of just looking at it on face value, add something like a... "How could I? How could I take a sabbatical and travel for two months?" or "How could I move to a smaller company that had better work life boundaries?" or "How could I, whatever it is, insert your story here." Is that what you're saying?

Lisa Lewis-Miller 35:05
Absolutely. And then once you have come up with whatever that statement is, if it's maybe the limiting belief that you had was, nobody's really that happy in their jobs. And then you look for, I think there probably are people who are happy in their jobs, how could I become happier in my job? How can I find the people who are happier in their jobs? And you start to put yourself into that mindset? Then the next step, the next piece in the puzzle, is reinforcing that belief as being the new reality for you by looking for that supporting evidence and seeking out who are the people, who are really happy and excited and motivated? And what are they doing that's different from what I'm doing so far? Or what are the workplaces that tend to have a reputation for happy employees. And what are different about those workplaces? Are there are certain industries or certain sectors that tend to over index and people feeling really satisfied and excited and happy? And is that something that I might think about considering for my own shift, and the more that you can push yourself to keep looking, keep digging, keep seeking out new information on how this might be possible for you, the easier all of a sudden, it's going to feel to actually make it happen for yourself.

Scott Anthony Barlow 36:19
Now, ironically, that is how this whole company got started, too, or even if you go to the precursor of how Happen To Your Career started, I was looking at those two, well, a little bit of a juxtaposition, because we know from the work that Gallup and a couple other companies that have accumulated good research on it that really about only 13% of people that are in the workforce, really enjoy immensely their jobs and their roles. And we also know that, at least in the United States, there's only about 8% of people that make more than $100,000 a year, like not very much. And if you look at the entire world, that's a much, much, much smaller percentage. And then when you put those together and think about it almost as like overlapping Venn diagram, there's even fewer people that both make a lot of money and are well paid, and also love what they do. And I think at that point, you can go down the same track that we've been talking about, you can either accept that story as like,"Oh, well, you know, only a few people in the world do that. I guess I should just go ahead and give that up." Or you can say, "How could I figure out what those people are doing?"

Lisa Lewis-Miller 37:40
Yeah, one of my favorite quotes from Tony Robbins, one of the biggest name coaches out there is that "success leaves clues". And so once you see someone out there who is doing the thing that looks like the sort of thing that you want to be doing, it's not just a complete accident that they got there, there got to be some sort of breadcrumbs that they have left throughout the decisions they've made, the places that they work, the skills, they acquired, the people that they formed relationships with, that helped them to be able to unlock the right doors to get to where they are. And you can reverse engineer a lot of the different pieces of those pads, especially once you start to look at a couple different people and a couple different models of how somebody could get to the type of thing that you're particularly excited about.

Scott Anthony Barlow 38:28
So let's assume then that I have identified a couple of my stories that I'm telling myself, and I've now reframed it into the, "How could I do this? How could I learn about this? How could I look at this differently?" whatever it is, what's next? What's next to make this reframe really successful?

Lisa Lewis-Miller 38:51
I think that the biggest thing to do to start is just give yourself the intellectual challenge of without the seeking out other data points, snd just thinking in a theoretical space, what might be possibilities to help you make that world your reality. So let's say for example, that somebody really wanted to get the opportunity to work remotely. And they had the belief like there are no jobs that actually pay enough for me to work remotely, the only remote jobs are call center jobs, I don't want to do that. And they do this Jedi mind trick to say, "How could I find work that pays me enough? That allows me to work remotely too?" And then you start to put on that creative brainstorm hat and think about all of the wild and crazy and maybe even slightly ridiculous seeming ways that that could be possible. Then all of a sudden you have a new playing field of opportunity. So if all you're looking for is a job that pays you enough and allows for you to work remotely, that could be working for somebody else full time, who has really flexible work from home policy, it could be working for somebody else full time that is an all remote company and workforce. I have a friend who works for one of those. It's a WordPress theme developer and they just had a six week team summit in Chiang Mai, Thailand. But otherwise, the team is free to work from wherever the heck they want to work on the globe. But maybe instead of working for one employer full time, maybe the right solution for you would be working for two employers full time, doing two different remote part time gigs to get you to the salary that feels good, while also giving you the flexibility and the freedom that feels good. And maybe it could be working for yourself, you start your own business that you can design to be location independent, or something that actually requires you to travel to places that could be really fun for you. So maybe you have this secret dream of getting to host leadership retreats, or mommy-baby play classes and emotional awareness classes. And you can go and do those in all kinds of fun cities like San Francisco one month, in New York City another month, in Austin another month, you know, when you think about getting to be the boss of your own life, and all the different ways that you could fill those needs, within a fairly limited brainstorm of just trying to optimize for those two things, money and flexibility, you can come up with some wild and exciting and really expansive possibilities and ideas for yourself.

Scott Anthony Barlow 41:28
I love that. And it's... that might take... Okay, so if we go through this and its entirety, we might be talking about like 60 minutes worth of time, total. And if I think about, like the biggest things that have happened in my personal life, honestly, a lot of them have come from this type of work, like sitting down and really considering, "Hey, what is it that I have been wanting to do?" And then putting some dedicated time into this type of process to figure out, "Hey, what could this look like? How could I do it?" and just initially brainstorming some different ways that that could happen, and then allowing that work, that's not where it stops, by any means, doesn't just magically happen after that, but allowing that initial foundational level work and consideration to then blossom, and then turn into the actual thing over the course of upcoming, sometimes weeks, sometimes months, sometimes years.

Lisa Lewis-Miller 42:42
Yeah, absolutely. And, two things that are important about your story that I want to make sure that we highlight are: Number one, it doesn't have to take a long time, you can do this whole exercise in 60 minutes, which is thrilling and exciting. But what makes the difference is if you're committing to it. If you're doing this just for the purposes of having an intellectual exercise, okay, sure, fine, that sounds like that could be fun. But if you have made a secret commitment, or an explicit commitment that you are excited about and ready to and willing to explore what those next steps might look like for you, it's going to make this type of work so much more powerful. You know, you said that everything, the game changed for you when you and Alyssa decided to commit to running a half marathon or commit to seeing how it might be possible to make Paris into a real thing for the business. And that commitment, I think is huge. But the other thing that you said that I want to make sure we highlight is that once you do this brainstorm, that should be, you know, the point where we are really starting to pour some jet fuel onto that fire. And then you can ask yourself, you know, "What's just the next tiniest baby step that I could take to see if this could be reality for me?" Maybe it's doing research to see other people who have walked down the same path. Maybe it is, if you're wanting to do work that's remote, maybe it is exploring what your current company's policy is on that type of work. Maybe it's doing research into all remote workforces, whatever that looks like for you, once you've got this brainstorm, momentum rolling, don't let it die there. Block off the time, continue to honor that commitment, make it a priority, and start to then put in the time and the elbow grease that it takes to really change your life and live your dream.

Scott Anthony Barlow 44:34
This is amazing. And I will say, too, that if you want to see an example of exactly how this works and how this plays out, and what that 60 minutes in terms of how you can spend your time to be able to make this work for you, you can go over to happentoyourcareer.com/211, as in 211, because now we... this is the 211th episode of Happen To Your Career as weird as that sounds to say. Oh my goodness, we're at 211 episodes, how do we do that? But head on over there, and then you can get an example of exactly how this works and be able to see it in writing, and for some types of learning styles that's even more beneficial. This is super cool. I absolutely love that you're thinking about this, this way. And I've gotten the opportunity to witness this firsthand in some areas of your life as I've gotten to know you over the last, oh my goodness, how long have we known each other? Approaching two years at this point.

Lisa Lewis-Miller 45:35
It's been fun. It's been wild. I mean, you got to see this last year and me going from this idea, potentially working abroad, to then going and making it a three month part of my life within the span of one year. So it is absolutely possible to be done, especially when you enlist the right people to support you and help you make it happen. But I would love for... if you're listening to this, and you are going to go through this process and make this commitment to yourself, I would love to hear from you. Send me an email at lisa@happentoyourcareer.com. And let me know what sort of big, bold, gutsy goals you're thinking about. And if you want some help with that brainstorming process about what different ways it could be possible, let me know. We can talk via email, we can hop on the phone, because we are in the business of changing lives here at Happen To Your Career. And we want to see people unlocking new levels of happiness and fulfillment and contribution. And so whatever we can do to help make that happen for you, we want to do it. So send me a note.

Scott Anthony Barlow 46:38
It is kind of what we do around here, as it turns out. I so appreciate you taking the time and making the time and I, oh my goodness, we've had you... you're probably on the podcast like, I don't know, maybe 10 times now, something like that. So...

Lisa Lewis-Miller 46:56
Mark is waiting. Not yet, but I'm getting there.

Scott Anthony Barlow 46:58
You're catching up. So little bit behind the scenes, we typically record a lot of these in advance. And we are just about to hop on a recording with Mark and Lisa to bring him back. The reunion tour and the new tour at the same time. Oh wow. So look out for that in future episodes, too.

Scott Anthony Barlow 47:25
Hey, I wanted to give you a little bit behind the scenes here because you're one of our podcast listeners, and the podcast was our first project. And it's still something that we, not only take a lot of pride in, but we get really excited about every single week. And now that we're well over 200 plus episodes into it, and we've been able to grow this thing quite a bit, I wanted to be able to share a little bit about what we have going on coming up in the new year. We actually are re-releasing our signature program in the new year, it's gonna happen in mid January. And we're telling people that our podcast listeners are already on the waiting list for Career Change Bootcamp 2.0. So this is our signature coaching program to be able to help you identify what it is that you want. Finally, identify what it is that you should be doing in your career that matches up with what fits you in the life that you want. So not only have we completely redesigned the program, but we also have a lot of surprises in store for people who are interested in enrolling in it. So what I would invite you to do is go over to happentoyourcareer.com and then click on Career Change Bootcamp and sign up for the waitlist. And when you do that, you're going to hear about it, not only before anybody else does, but we're also going to give you a number of surprises for anybody who ends up enrolling in the program too. And those are going to range from additional time with our coaches all the way to access to parts of the program that other people just don't have. I think that you're going to... I think that you're going to love it. And I can't tell you everything. We haven't released it publicly yet, but I wanted to give you this heads up because you've been with us on this journey and been listening to the podcast, listening to all our episodes. Alright, hey, I will see you over there. You want to hear what's coming up next week on Happen To Your Career? Me too. All right, let's find out.

Jenny 49:42
And I also found teaching to be really demanding. And I felt this very strong sense of obligation to all the students in the classes that I taught, even as a graduate student, researcher, and teaching assistant, I had a lot of challenges sort of prioritizing, when do I grade papers and meet with students who are struggling versus when do I pursue my own research and write proposals and papers. And so my conclusion after sort of testing it out as a graduate student was, I'm not sure I could do this full time as a professor for the rest of my career.

Scott Anthony Barlow 50:16
Hey, all that and plenty more right here next week on Happen To Your Career. Until then, I will see you later.

Lisa Lewis-Miller 50:25
Adios. I'm out!

Scott Anthony Barlow 50:34
Oh, are we starting?

Lisa Lewis-Miller 50:39
Wait, hold on, I need to do my get my Scott Barlow radio.

Scott Anthony Barlow 50:44
The radio voice.

Lisa Lewis-Miller 50:46
It is really hard. That is... that's the best way I could characterize it. This balance of wanting to hang on to my ambition and my hunger and my fire and my desire to be creative. But also, like, the paradoxical piece of also accepting where I am, and being here and being still and not letting that drive put me back on the road to Bali or Nashville or whatever is supposed to be, until that's the natural right thing to do.

Scott Anthony Barlow 51:25
Drop what I'm gonna drop right in there. Like, so.

Lisa Lewis-Miller 51:31
It's funny. I got some emails from folks who were like, "I listened to the podcast this week. Hawaii sounds great." Like, well, I hope you can see me now. The basement of my mother's house in Colorado. Like we've got to orient everybody in the HTYC community towards the horizon line and towards shore and then throw them some water wings and some flippers to get them there faster.

Scott Anthony Barlow 51:57
Yes, yes. Okay, let's do that. We're in complete with water wings and flippers and potentially, like those big, I don't know, blow up whales that are cool to, like, the really big ones. Like when your kid, it's much larger than you, that one too. Yeah. I feel like that's gonna get me there faster.

Lisa Lewis-Miller 52:21
Yeah, although knowing the people in the HTYC community, we're probably going to end up teaching them how to build their own deck boat in process. Water wings are for the weak, water wings are for the juvenile. Our people don't mess around.

Scott Anthony Barlow 52:39
We are an anti water wing community. I'm sorry. See that one? He's designing a hydro cruiser. You don't know what a hydro cruiser is because he made it up.

Lisa Lewis-Miller 52:52
There you go, I like it. That's dreaming big for 2018 right there.

Scott Anthony Barlow 52:56
There we go. The later in the day you get me, the higher pitched my voice goes throughout the day. Like in the morning, it's like, "Hey, this is Scott Barlow. How you doing?" Like extra low. And then throughout the rest of the day, it's like, "Hey, hi there. How are ya?" Oh, my goodness, this is going to be the possibly the most informal podcast. Maybe ever. We'll see. I don't know that we're going to be able to keep straight faces for this one. It's certainly off to, I don't know what that dance move was that just attempted to poorly performed, but it is after that kind of start. It is that kind of day. As it turns out.

Scott Anthony Barlow 53:57
We've noticed a funny phenomenon. We all have something that we'd love to do or accomplish or be that is wildly unrealistic. For some people that's starting a business for the first time, for us still others it's making a career change to something that you know you'd love but really just doesn't seem possible. So if you've ever thought you wanted to do something, but thought, "I don't know if that's realistic" then I want you to ask yourself this question, "What if it was possible? And what if the only thing unrealistic about what you really actually want is that you think it's unrealistic?" See, here at HTYC, we've been helping people do the impossible since we started in 2012. And on January 3rd, we'll be releasing a three part podcast series on the behind the scenes of how we help people just like you make wildly unrealistic career changes. And if you're not already subscribed to the podcast, you'll want to make sure that you do that right now on your podcast player of choice or go to our website, so that you can make sure that you're going to get this as soon as it releases on January 3rd. That way, you can stop settling and go after what you really want in this new year. It's going to not be like anything else that we've ever released before. So take a look out and make sure that you're subscribed or subscribed to our email list so that you'll get the series as soon as it drops. That way you can stop settling and go after what you really want in this new year. I will see you next week when the episode releases on Monday. All right. I am out. Adios.