#226: Reframe And Reset: Building Resilience In Business With Brenda Neckvatal

Life happens, and not always the way we expect it to. Every single day we face change, stress, and uncertainty. What if you could learn to thrive no matter what life throws your way? Resilience expert Adam Markel and his inspiring guests explore breakthrough strategies to fully embrace change and build the resilience required to become change-proof.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode Welcome to another episode of the Conscious Pivot Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markel, and I am feeling just so fortunate and blessed as I sit here in this moment, sitting in the seat of gratitude, figuratively, literally, just feeling grateful for the day. And I've got a great guest, somebody that I came to know a couple of months ago. We have some mutual friends now. It's been a total love fest. Yep. So, I'm so glad that I get to introduce all of you to Brenda Nickvotel. I'm gonna say a little bit about her, read a little bit of her bio, and then we'll dive right in. So Brenda is an award-winning HR professional and is often referred to as, get this, the HR force of nature. That's so cool. I was an attorney and I practiced employment law for a lot of years. So an HR force of nature. Oh, you know it. Oh, this works. I already got, I got chills from that. And of course, she didn't give herself that name. That comes directly from her clients. So not only does she help businesses and their leaders to solve the most difficult people issues. I know, and nobody can relate to that. Right. She is a specialist in crisis management, government contracting, HR compliance, and a mentor to women in HR working situations. And I think it's just, you know, there's a lot to that. So I wanna dive into that. But first, I wanna say, Brenna is also a devoted volunteer in the Navy SEAL community and is constantly finding new ways of supporting veterans of Naval Special Warfare. She dedicates 30 2 weeks a year working with the Honor Foundation to support the career transition of Special Forces personnel by providing them with her knowledge, insight, and creativity. Brenda, it's such a pleasure to have you on the show. Thanks for being here.

Yeah, it's great to see you again. It's been a few months.

It has been a couple of months. So what is not written, or let's say one thing that's not a part of the written bio I've just read that you would love for people to know about you?

You dropped the bomb on me. I was not expecting this question. You know what? I think the thing that people— that's not in the bio is that, you know, the bio is pretty impressive, right? But I'm just a normal, average, goofy human being that still is out there figuring it out just like everybody else. You know, I just— I've got areas where I'm good at things and I have areas where, ooh.

Well, you and I were talking about that right before we started, that you were saying to me that you are— let's say we're not born necessarily with the marketing gene, but you are a student, a perpetual student. So you're learning marketing and getting better at it, and the results are showing.

Yeah, it's, um, you know, my influential language for the last, you know, as a professional for the last 20 years is in HR. And, you know, you— I didn't know that you were an employment attorney, so you understand.

I don't think that came up last time we talked.

So, so if it did, I totally forgot, but, uh, it— I won't now. But, you know, it's like, that's a different kind of language than marketing. I mean, it's a different type of persuasion, and it's a different type of influence conversation. And then you have to flip over to marketing where You know, it's funny, you had a guest on a little while ago, Will Branham, and we were talking about this because, you know, Will and I are friends. And we were, we were talking, I was explaining to him, I said, you know, for me, that's really like putting me right in the middle of a— it's totally, totally out of my comfort zone because I have to now say, I think you need to believe that I'm worth you spending your money on me. And that's a weird feeling. He goes, yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I said, yeah, it's, you know, you're 2, almost 2 years out of your retirement, and look how long it took you to be able to say, hi, I'm Will Branham, and I'm a former Navy SEAL, because they don't do that,

right? Yeah, he's 26 years in the Navy SEALs, and he leaves. And, and that was an amazing— I think a really wonderful podcast we had because he got so vulnerable about the fact that you leave a family like that, you leave a team and a support system like that, and the transition support that exists outside of that really tight-knit group isn't so great, uh, or at least it seems like that's the case. And so Will, you know, has made his own adjustments into, as you say, being able to introduce himself not only as a former Navy SEAL but as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, as somebody who's now selling himself. And as you said, it's a different kind of influence.

It is. It totally is. It's like speaking Spanish your whole life and then trying to figure out how to speak Japanese or vice versa. It's hard. I mean, it's like nothing— 2 things are not the same, not even remotely close. I mean, Spanish and Italian, yeah, they're both Latin-based, but Japanese and Spanish? But that's what it feels like.

Yes. But, and so have you, you've been able to pick it up through— what's been your process of learning this new language, let's call it?

Well, the first piece of the process is to let go of what you think you know. That's the hardest thing right there. I mean—

Humility.

Right, exactly.

But

you

don't understand my whole self-image, my everything. I, you know, that the world thinks of me is based on what I know and what I've learned over this time. You're asking me, you're telling me right out of the gate I should let go of what I think I know?

But you think you know what you think. So what you know and what you think you know are 2 totally different things, right? What you Think you know. And, you know, and this is, this is across the board when it comes to people, right? This aligns with my number one live and die rule in life, and that is in the absence of information, people make stuff up, right? So when you go into business, like, here's a good example. You know, I come out and I say, hey, listen, I got this really great thing that I want you to come and buy. It's $20. It'll help you out. It'll do all sorts of good stuff for you. And you know what? I'm making it available to you. So you say that, you write it, you email it, you post it in social, right? It's all over the place. But what's going on in here, because you don't get any, you don't get any reciprocal feedback that comes in, what happens up here and what you think you know is there's no way in hell anybody's gonna buy this. You know, why am I to put something like that out? You know, like, what the hell was I thinking? You know, do I really need to be an independent contractor or should I go and get a 9 to 5 because I'm not worthy, I'm not worth this, and why would anybody believe me? But this is— something's driving me to do it, right? So it's what you think, you know, you have to get away from. And that's hard. I mean, battling that conversation right there, that why would anybody want to do this? And, you know, you just have to reframe it in a way that it can work for you. And it's a process.

Resilience. It's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And in times of massive change and disruption, the kind of rapid change that we're all experiencing as leaders, as business owners, as entrepreneurs, we have to learn how to not only increase our own resilience, but that of our teams. So right now we have a powerful opportunity for you to find out just how resilient you are. Some years ago, my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilience leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. I really don't think we could have planned this any better. And the best part is that we didn't even plan it. No, we didn't. That's the best. And for the folks that are watching this on YouTube, you'll see what's on the screen. And those that are not watching but are listening, I'm going to just sort of say it, that we've studied resilient organizations and individuals, and resilience is the thing that's most on our minds. It's most a part of our— of the development of our own business because, you know, wrote a book called Pivot, and a chapter in that book is about resilience. Yeah. And now fast forward a few years later, and the book is Resilience and the chapter is Pivot, and it's really both as well. But you've got to develop your own resilience in this world that we're living in, in the business environment that we are all Find ourselves in. And that's tricky because first of all, there's no kind of resilience courses that are taught when we're 3 and 5 and 10 years old. We only have the models of people around us, the family and friends, and maybe even in school. So this is something that's been thought of as a soft skill. I think it's been dismissed in ways because people think it's not something you can actually teach or can learn, but something maybe you're just born with. And I think what you're describing, at least the way you started in terms of learning a new language like the language of marketing, you said you've got to learn to reframe. And that when we've studied, as, as our research has revealed, this first theme of resilient individuals and organizations is the ability, the capacity to reframe.

Yeah.

So I'd love to get your, your beat on what

I would love to. And, and I want to take a quick step back because that's something that really I just got, like I really heard it when you talked about how people, you know, our worldview, you know, we're, we're growing up with our parents and our family and our friends, and they're the ones that are teaching us resilience. They're teaching us their resilience and what works for them, not what works for you. And, you know, as a kid, I was a very sensitive kid. You know, I'm a dyslexic, and it It was misdiagnosed many years ago. So my one parent would say, just don't worry about it. It's like, well, that's easier said than done. That's not my level of resilience, right? And then the other one is just like, well, turn the other cheek. Well, you know what happened to me every time I turned the other cheek? The other one got smacked. I wasn't very good. I mean, I was good at turning the cheek, but what happened is that I got railroaded. It wasn't until later in life that I became resilient. I mean, I was surviving growing up. That's basically what it was. That wasn't resilience. No. That's just pure instinctual survival to make it into the next day. So take the reframe question and reframing for me was, okay, I know I can survive and there's got to be something— there's a better life out there. And it was the first thing that it took was, I think when you reframe something in life, I think you have to reestablish and reidentify what boundaries make sense in the moment and at your stage of life. Because we all have— and if you're not putting boundaries up, then you know what? You're just going to get walked all over and you'll never be able to be resilient and you'll never be able to reframe and you'll never be able to move forward. You're always going to be stuck in this underneath somebody else's feet, and that's no place for anybody to live. So, you know, there's, you know, my, my definition of resilience is, you know, right along there with, you know, the Navy SEALs. It's just embrace the suck because you learn stuff from it, right? It's your personal challenge. But reframing is different. That is taking an intellectual look at how you're feeling.

Yes.

And coming up with a new formula so that way You don't feel as bad or you don't feel as suppressed or you don't feel as stuck. And once you do that, you find yourself in forward motion. And when you're in motion, you won't feel those things.

Well, it's interesting because reframing, I think the way it came up in our conversation a moment ago is that it was in the context of relearning. So in many ways, I think I was really feeling when you said it, that was such a strong hit for me, was this idea that relearning Reframing is what reframing is. You are relearning something. You framed it a certain way. It may have been framed that way for you when you were a kid. It may be framed through your own life experiences or the programming or whatever it might be. But at a certain point, you're faced with, with a challenge in a situation and you're giving it a meaning.

Yeah.

Like you're saying, I'm not a marketer. I'm not a salesperson. I don't speak that language. That's Japanese to me. And I only speak, you know, 10 other languages.

Right.

So will you ever be able to market or succeed in that space if the frame that you're looking at it through is a frame of, I suck at this, I could not learn this?

Nope. The narrative has to change.

You have to relearn. Exactly. You have to change the narrative. You got to have to relearn, or even, I suppose, in some way unlearn.

Yeah.

And that's a part of the reframe, which I think is so Powerful. I might as well go through the— there's 3 themes that, that we typically, when we're either presenting this material to an organization or we're writing about it or sharing information, we talk about these 3 themes. One is the reframe, which you just covered so nicely. And thank you. The second one is the reset.

Yeah.

And so I'd like to, without even telling you what we think or what we found about resetting, What's your beat on reset?

I think reset to me is taking the necessary time to allow the reframing process to happen. So this past summer, this is crazy. I had, it was in 6 weeks, 5 people that I knew passed away, including my business partner. And none of them was related to COVID. And I flew out to Utah for the funeral. Will, that's actually where I hooked up with Will and another SEAL that came out with us. And, you know, the funeral was on my birthday, and I couldn't think of a better place to be. But on the way back, I felt like a square peg in a round hole. I knew that my whole life had just been shifted. Not whole, no, but I was really counting on this project that we were doing. We were 4 days away from launching it. And so I got home, I'm trying to figure out like, how am I going to keep this thing alive? How am I, you know, I thought business was moving in this direction and I just felt the walls closing in. You know, I've been— I just got done, you know, healing from a dislocated elbow in March. And the whole time between March and April, I had presented, you know, what to do with the coronavirus, the arrival of the coronavirus and the new laws that were— that come out to 3,500 employers. I was pretty cooked at that point. I was ready for a sexual harassment case. Just give me something different and unique. But— Yeah. Nothing shifted. And then with all these people that I knew that were passing away, one literally right after the other, and it's, you know, it's just like I always like, okay, these things come in threes, and then it was 4, and then it was 5. And I'm like, you got to be kidding me. And so I just felt the walls closing. And I'm like, I got to get out of here. And that's exactly what I did. You know, I developed— I, you know, catered my life in a way that built it in a way that I could be on the road and I could work wherever I am. It didn't matter. I can be anywhere in the world and do what I do. And so I got in the car, grabbed my puppy, and we drove from Virginia to California and we had business trips all along the way. And while I did it, I spent 50 hours listening to— I spent, let's put it this way, I was listening to this one particular entrepreneur for 50 hours of his podcast and his audiobook. And in 25 days is what it took for me to get the reset process done. And I went through So all of the everything of morning and everything in motion. And by the time I came back, you know, I felt good because I was looking at different things and seeing different people. I was engaging in business in a different way. I was looking at it from a different mindset. I was looking at myself from a different mindset. And I didn't feel stuck because I was in motion for 25 days, even though a couple of days here, stayed in Utah for about 5 days and You know, doing business and some things fell through, some things started moving forward. And I was just very, it was like, whatever's going to happen is going to happen. And, you know, I'll take what comes my way and build it to the best of my ability. But it just, it was great because I just allowed the process to be. Right. And when I came back, I got to hit the ground running. And then, you know, I got into a learning mindset again. And now it's just like, Crushing it.

So the reset for you involved staying in motion.

Yeah.

And not, you know, again, as you said, it's so individualized that the way a reset looked for you might look different for someone else. But

absolutely,

when we look at reset, we typically just think in terms of, you know, you're like off in the weeds somewhere, your car has driven off the road, you're in the weeds, and you've made a wrong turn or, or what have you, and The question arises in your mind, meaning your collective, our minds, that I can't get there now. I can't get there from here. You know, it's like that old commercial. I think it was like a cranberry, you know, commercial. And there's some guy from Maine who says, you can't get there from here.

The 2 guys standing in the cranberry pots. Those

guys standing in a bog, right?

Right.

You can't get there from here. And, and I'm always sort of, uh, reminded that our GPS will tell us the truth.

Yeah,

the GPS does not judge us for having driven off the road and got stopped and stuck in the weeds. It simply tells us the truth every time.

Yeah, but your navigators are the ones that do, right? And that's where, when you're in this reset, there's a couple things that have to happen. Not— I mean, for me it was about being in motion, but the other things that took— that kicked in and took place, that first and foremost is that You know, I had to figure out that I was going to be okay no matter what happened. And I know that, but then there's a deeper conversation that you have to buy into it, right? And, you know, and like I was just telling you, you know, I just got done doing these marketing courses and, you know, every view— this is the sign of really good marketing, right? Everybody tells you that if you do A, B, C, and D, you're going to be a phenomenal success, right? So, I'm doing A, B, C, and D, and I'm failing horribly. Right? Just, I mean, sucking wind, licking the curb. You come up with any cliché and that's been me, right? At least I think so. But along the way, I'm learning about what comes out of failure. And I've always had this quote that success is a byproduct of failure. And I've been very proud of that. But here's the thing that I never included in my own personal mindset, even when I tell people this, even when I believe it, Is that you have to forgive yourself for failing. And once you do that, you know what? Then your aperture opens. And it was amazing. Just in 4 days, I went from, I'm doing all these things and I'm having somebody telling me that you're not going to get it right on the first time. Matter of fact, you're not going to get it right on the 10th time, but if you keep at it, you're going to get it and it's going to happen. And I've seen those little successes start to happen. And then I went, you know what, out of all of this marketing that's out there and telling you that you should do ABCD and you're gonna be an outrageous success, that's the one thing that they're not telling you.

Yeah, they're not telling you—

It's okay.

You're gonna need to be so tenacious. Yeah. And you're gonna have so many down days. I mean, I know some really successful marketers that have some pretty crappy days. And I don't mean, you know, normal, just everyday crappy days. I mean, you know, the business wheels are coming off or The thing that they themselves were doing successfully has changed because the algorithm has changed. And pick an algorithm, pick a thing.

Right. And I think the formula that happens in the journey is that you put something out there. And the thing is that when I really got that they're comfortable with their marketing efforts not working because they know something's going to click. It allowed me to get away from that pressure that I put on myself without really realizing it. And that's going after that sale every time somebody looks at what it is that you're putting out. And again, when you've got these marketers that say, you do this, this, this, and this, and you'll be an outrageous success, they really do make you believe that you're going to do it, which again is a sign of good marketing. But But when you're applying it and if you really want to be successful, you have to remember and you have to really be okay with saying, I'm going to try this. But when you try it, watch for what's working and get rid of what doesn't. So take what's working and now apply that to the second thing. And more than likely it will work again, but then you marry it to something else and, ooh, hey, I just made it. It's like making a snowball, right? And then you go run over with just a dusting of snow and then you go run over here and you pack some more snow in because now it's getting bigger, right? And it's just all of a sudden stuff just clicks and it's like, whoo, I found something. And now, now things are starting to move forward.

Wow. The pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day it's something different and something new. But the one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of all of those roles has been that we must be resilient. In fact, it's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And it's the reason why my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilient leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes. And it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So, go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. It's an interesting concept in so many ways, and it reminds me of a book that I read a few months back by Cal Newport called So great they can't ignore you, or something something like that. I love that, you know, and and it's not, you know, he took that term be so great they can't ignore you, or be good enough or great enough they can't ignore you from Steve Martin, the comedian.

Yeah,

who was at some point being interviewed by Charlie Rose on some show, and you know they're saying to Steve, or Charlie saying to Steve, you know how you just like when you hit the scene and people knew about you, it was just lights out. I mean, he was filling stadiums. And it was the height of success. And then he stopped at a certain point, stopped doing any stand-up comedy after a few years, you know. And he started to describe that it was the 15 years of struggle before that moment where people knew his name and he became, quote, successful. He said that he was working on his craft so methodically, so vigilantly, tirelessly. I mean, tired, exhausted, frustrated, upset, self-doubting. Miserable, all the array of emotions over the course of a period, of a long period where the world was not recognizing the effort, not rewarding the effort. And he kept going. And so to be too good for people to ignore you was his sort of driving mantra, that he just would become so great that they would not be able to ignore him any longer. Wow. And so I think what Cal used that for in the book was this concept of instead of sort of— Cal goes against follow the passion. And I'm giving big props to Cal right here. I don't know him and it's the only book of his I've read, but I thought it was really valuable that the idea of developing the craftsman's mindset to become so good at something that you develop the career capital for it. Yeah. And then he brings it to the context The idea that things happen like the one you just described, that when you become committed to something at that level, you find a piece of a puzzle. You find something that works. Maybe there's 2 things out of 10 that work, and the other 8 things just are maddening. They're maddening because you spent time on them, you spent money on them, you hired people, and, and now you have nothing really other than these 2 little things. And you don't even know how these 2 things fit anything. Yeah. But then, like you said, all of a sudden, you find that those 2 things fit 2 other things, and then they fit another thing. And then before you know it, it's like you're saying, you're packing them together in like this snowball, and then you actually have something and you go, wow. And it didn't come in a nice, neat thing. You didn't buy a snowball. And so, I find it a little bit— I got to call BS on some of these companies that say, yeah, it's ABCD and we'll show you ABCD.

I agree.

Right, 'cause it just doesn't really work like that, at least not in my experience.

Yeah, you're right. You know, and there's something that I, that I, you know, when I, I've got an HR community that I lead now and we're growing, we're at 257 members and we're not even a year old. And these are dedicated people in the field of human resources that are coming going, we want more, we want more, right? We want to, this is what we're looking at accomplishing. And, you know, I can't get information out there fast enough sometimes, but there's a distinct difference. When company leaders— and this is where there's a disconnect between a CEO and an HR person, all right? And I'm just now kind of starting to play in this area because it's going to apply to both things. I have a 7-month-old puppy that's like 75 pounds and bigger than the Ark, and I don't know what he just knocked over. I'm sorry. Anyway.

No, no, it's just cool to watch him walk behind you, and, uh, it's like seeing a polar bear, like a little baby polar bear behind there.

So, you know, So CEOs look at a return on investment, but HR people make the mistake of gauging everything on— you said the word earlier, effort. It's a return on effort. So if you look at investment, an investment is something where you— it's a magic recipe of time, money, resources that eventually should produce something if you nurture The motion, right?

Hmm.

Effort is different. Effort is like pushing on a big stone, on a big boulder, right? You can put effort into moving that boulder, but you haven't invested anything into it. And what happens is when you let go of your effort, that kinetic energy stops. But when you have— when you've invested something into it, Those are tools and mechanisms to help you get that boulder from one spot to the desired spot. Effort is just part of it. And so when you talk about Steve Martin, he was just so focused on honing his craft and the effort. My question would've been, what was his investment into it? How many people was he out circulating to try and get in? And we make the mistake And I think that's where sometimes people fail is that we focus more on the effort of trying to get something done rather than figuring out what's the formula to make it happen.

Yeah. I think it's— no, it makes total sense. I think in Steve's case, it's hundreds, if not thousands of club, of cheap club dates, you know, being in front of an audience of 5 people who've been drinking too much or an audience of 50 people or whatever it is. Yeah, I mean, and practicing and practicing and practicing your craft to the point where, yeah, you just, you got it dialed in. And then that part of it isn't the whole picture. It— I think that's, you know, what we're saying is that it requires this ability to really go the distance. Like, when I think of, for us, the, the definition of resilience is the ability to leverage adversity as a catalyst for growth. Yeah. And using that adversity as a way to inspire continued growth, not to inspire quitting or inspire turning to some other thing that feels like a shiny object in the moment, but instead really just honing the craft. Yeah. So that eventually there are these collateral benefits that come from it, whether it's the meeting of someone, the partnering with someone that comes out of nowhere and you You go, whoa, where'd that come from? Putting some of those pieces together that you didn't— wouldn't have known to put together but for the fact that you've spent those 10,000 hours plus plus working on something. Yeah. I want to get to the third— this third theme when it comes to resilience, because I think it fits so well with the theme of our conversation today, which is recovery. Again, the research is really clear resilience is not about endurance alone. It's not just physical, it's mental, it's emotional, it's even spiritual. And to be able to go the distance, to have the longevity that Steve Martin had to be able to succeed in his craft, the longevity that you're having to be able to succeed in your craft, you really have to be able to be around. You can't win a race you don't finish, right? Right. So, so many people just get— they get sidelined by Illness. They get sidelined by other things that happen in their lives, things that might even feel or look like self-sabotage. So how is it that you continue to re— to produce your resilience through recovery, and specifically through recovery rituals?

Yeah, I— you know what, I got really clear. There's a couple things that I did. I went— I spoke at a women's conference in Uh, New York City last year, this November last year.

Back when we actually would speak in public?

Yeah, you can actually see people. Yeah.

No way.

Yeah. And I felt like I kind of hit a pinnacle, like I hit a high spot, because after my presentation that evening, I found myself without planning it at the Plaza Hotel having champagne, $32 glass of champagne. And I was like, oh my God, how did I get here? And it was awesome. And I was all excited and amped up. And that's when I really started to look inward and say, you know what? If you're going to be successful, you got to really start doing things that matter and not chase your tail. But I was in the beginning and I didn't have any feedback and I didn't know really what my audience wanted. And it was kind of like I got over the first hurdle in the race. It's kind of like, okay, we got the first one, right? The next one feels like it's 5 feet away, but it looks like it's It's about 5 years. So one of the things that I had done when I was there is that I slept and I was in New York City. And, you know, what do you— how you get around in New York City is not by a car. And I was walking everywhere. I walked to church and, you know, I rode the subway and it was great and I loved it. And I'm like, I felt so good. And then that's when I was like, you know, I haven't really done anything. I've eaten like a pig. I've had champagne and— But I'm walking and I'm sleeping, and I started to tune into that. So when I got back to Virginia where I live, I started to make sure that I got at least 6 to 7 hours of sleep versus 4 to 5. Huge difference. And

then I was like—

Recovery's starting to be a big thing. When I lost my business partner and I met Will, and all these guys had— all of them, my business partner, you know, the other SEAL that we went out with, Will had one. And it was all these things, this thing called a Whoop. And a Whoop is one of those— it's this, it's this biometric reader. And I got it because I'm like, okay, well, they're obviously— because like, you know, they check their Whoop, and it was just like this little boys club. It was hilarious. And so I'm like, what's so big about this Whoop? And I looked And it was different because it doesn't count your steps. It actually tells you what your body is doing. And I loved it. So I ordered one, I got involved with it, and I started paying attention to my sleep because I knew that I was doing better. But the Whoop tells you, you know, your recovery at the end of the day, if you've recovered enough or you haven't recovered quite a bit. And it's funny because when I feel like crap and I look at my Whoop, it's like, oh, well, that makes sense. You know, something happened. I may have gotten the sleep, but something happened and I'm not recovering. So Will had sent me a sample, a bottle of his CBD gummies, and I thought, this is awesome. So I took one and I'm such a lightweight. I'm like, okay, I'm going to go take a nap now. And it was great and I had good sleep. So then I was like, hmm, this is interesting. So So I started taking a gummy before I went to sleep and I started getting really, really good quality sleep and my Whoop was telling me that. And I thought, this is interesting. So then, you know, you know, notice that come the end of the day, it's hard for me to disconnect. So about 5 o'clock, I'm like, all right, I'm gonna see what happens when I take 2, not at the same time, but I go take a nap. But I took one at 5 and what I found is that I started to slow down. In the evening. And I wasn't like trying to jam a bunch of stuff in. And then I'd have another one before I'd go to bed. My recovery got better based off of my Whoop. Then I went ahead and I listened after my, you know, my— I call it my American walkabout for 25 days. And I listened to this one episode where this gentleman was talking about how he dedicates from 5 AM— now I have a puppy who wakes me up at anywhere between 4 and 5 to go out, right? He's getting a little bit better, but up until that point, you He was always waking me up, that he'd get up the same time every morning, grab his protein shake, and at the time I was doing greens, grab his coffee, grab his laptop, and use the first 3 hours of his day to move his business forward. And then he talked about how restructuring. So I changed the structure of my day. So the first part of my day is about me focusing in on my business. The second half of my day, after 1 o'clock to 5 o'clock, is podcasting, videos, interviews, meetings, anything that has nothing to do with moving my business forward. But it's all the other stuff that I have to do, right? Huge difference. And then my Whoop told me differently, right? Told me that I was making better decisions. And so I realized that my personal recovery for me starts at 5 o'clock when I take that first CBD gummy because then I start slowing my brain down. I have a father who has Alzheimer's and I take care of him. I'm his trustee. I'm starting to see what happened. He was a high-level executive for 23 years and his brain is burned And that's something that is a study that we've learned is that CEOs that are high-level charged positions in bigger corporations are more likely to develop dementia and Alzheimer's now because their brains have been so active for so long because they don't shut it down, right? My dad would lay on the couch and watch TV on the weekends, and he wasn't just— he wasn't watching TV. He was looking at a box with things moving in front of him while he was stuck in his head.

Yes.

So he burns himself out, right? And I can see the repercussions of that. I don't want that to happen to me. So I started focusing on my recovery. Now I'm turning 50 in August.

That's a deep breath right there. That was so uncomfortable to watch you do that. Oh my God, you guys, seriously, if you're not watching this on YouTube, you need to just get—

I don't wanna.

Just watch that one little spot right there. Because you know what, it's just not gonna do that justice. Oh God.

Anyway, you know, I'm moving into a different stage of my life.

Look, I'm after 50, so this life, I promise you.

So, but, but I'm already starting to see the things that he went through that I could fall victim to. So I'm doing what I need to do right now to To stop that progression from happening.

Time, the clock, and gravity are not working in our favor. And that's not a be upset or scared about it. It's like, well, what are you doing on a consistent basis to just take care of yourself? And the studies, the research, the data points, all the sort of analysis Point to one thing, and that is the people that have rituals for recovery, just like great athletes, great successful entrepreneurs, business owners, parents. You've got to have rituals. You've got to have specific rituals for your recovery because that's what recharges the battery. That's what allows you to come back and have greater capacity and go You know, seemingly forever. Interesting. So your ritual is that you've adopted this practice of taking these CBD gummies at the end of the day to start your winding down and your period of rest, because there's a difference even between sleep and rest.

Yeah.

And rest is so vital. It's so important. That's the recovery. You allow your mind to rest, your body to rest, and other things that are going on. You start it and then of course you have something that you take before you go to bed so that just like you have a nice restful, full sleep and you're seeing the change in—

Huge, huge.

You're getting up early. Well, you were getting up early anyway, but now you're getting up and you're getting at the hardest things or the most impactful things, let's call them, to drive your business when you're the freshest, which is really those first, whatever it is, 3, 4 hours of the day.

Absolutely. And Thanksgiving Day was the hardest day In a long time because I wanted to work. And I forced myself to plant myself on the couch and watch movies. And I didn't want to. It's like, I want to go upstairs. But I knew I was tired. I was emotionally tired. But that entrepreneurial drive that's there to keep going, and I've always been a work driver, but it was just like, no, you need to stop. And I was bored. There was nothing else going on. So I'm like, well, find something that you enjoy doing.

And— Does the Whoop yell at you? Does the Whoop give you like this shame?

No, the Whoop's very quiet.

The Whoop's very quiet. I think you're gonna uplevel the Whoop so that it's like, you know.

But what people don't know about me is that I'm actually, I'm building 4 companies. And so I'm like, well, I, you know, I've got this day and nobody's gonna bother me and I can, you know, I can work on this project. And I'm just like, oh, shut up, just stop, you know?

And

I forced myself to do that. Like, I can only go outside and walk so many times with the dog. He loved it, but it was just like, okay, I, you know, it's hard. It's hard to unplug, but you have to force yourself to do it. Come Friday, that always happens to me on the first day I take a vacation too, but this was the hardest this time around. And then Friday, I was like, okay, I can do this. And, you know, I had to do a little bit of work and I got that done. You know, I still got up at 5 in the morning and I still sat down and I still did my business stuff, but, you know, At 8 o'clock in the morning, I stopped and I enjoyed the rest of my day. And I did a little bit of the same thing on Sunday. And that's okay because that's a performance habit and you don't want to shed that.

I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof Podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals And habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today. I think everybody's going to— you have to sort of self-evaluate, and I'll put this out there too, which I think is very important. You've got to find out what your baseline is.

Yeah.

And what I think the Whoop is helping you with is that it's created a bit of a baseline for you. We, a couple of years ago, developed some questions to help people to find their baseline. We call it a resilience assessment tool. I'll put it out to everybody that's listening to this now. You can go to your.resilienceculture.com, your.resilienceculture.com, and 3 minutes of answering these 16 questions will get you your rank. We'll give you the score. It'll tell you what your baseline is, most importantly. what you could do to make some changes. And our list is so not exhaustive because I don't even know that we cover CBD, for example, as one of those things that could help you, a new ritual or something that would help you to recover. But what's cool about that assessment is it's divided up into those 4 areas. So it's important, but, but mental resilience, emotional resilience, and even spiritual resilience is really vital. So I will say, I've so— I just knew we were going to have a great conversation. We did the last time too, without any planning. Or, or any of that. And I, I just love the way you communicate. Do you communicate— I like— so we talked about your evening ritual. I'm going to end this podcast talking about my morning ritual, my waking ritual. But do you have a waking ritual? Do you have something you do every single morning the same?

Yeah, um, I get up, you know, Yoo-Hoo over here lets me know he's got to go out, and it's cold out there right now. Yeah, so I get Nakoa outside, you know, get him fed. I walk over, I make my coffee, and then he tells me he wants to go out again, which I, you know, You think I'd be smart and wait until he tells me after that he's got to go out a second time to make my coffee. But my morning ritual that really gets me going, that makes me feel good, is my coffee and my half-and-half. And then I just go and I just sit down. I get my greens together and I go sit down and I start working on, okay, what is the day going to look like? And what do I need to do? And what does the money look like? And what's most important? And what do I need to pull back on? That's how I set my day up, and I don't take on more than I know I can accomplish in a day. And if anything, the other thing too that I do is that I do the hardest thing that I don't want to do first.

Yes, and that's a key thing there.

Yeah, I like having fun, and, and to me, work is fun, and I really, really enjoy doing things that I like to do, right? And I don't have a lot— I don't have a lot of constraints in my life, you know. I don't— I, I don't have a husband and I don't have children. And so I don't have a lot of constraints. I have a furry child, that's about it. But, and he goes everywhere with me, so I really don't have any constraints other than money, right? And I think that's everybody's constraint. But, you know, that's, that's why you work hard, so you build more freedom. But so for me to do something that I'm not like a lot— I don't like outwardly, you would never know that I do this, but on the inside I'm like a crying whiny baby in my head about it. And I just It's just like when I hear that, it's just like, just shut up and get it done. Just do it, get it over with, and then you can enjoy everything else that you need to do.

Our daughter, our oldest daughter Chelsea, has a way to approach that which I love. She just goes 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and then she starts. She gives herself this countdown. She's like, you know, instead of sitting in her dirty diaper.

Yeah, nice.

But yeah, I mean, my head

was like,

oh, this goes 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, boom, and she starts it.

That's it. I find that I spend more time complaining about it than it actually took to take— do the damn task.

So funny. Well, I will again just thank you for all the wonderful insights you shared with our community today.

Yeah, happy to. Thank you.

I love for myself just to— the same way I end every episode with a reminder for me and for anybody that has either heard this and requires the reminder like I do or has never heard this before. But I think that the most impactful moment of the day for myself, that waking moment, I can either put myself on the right track, be thinking rightly and making right decisions, If I start the day off on the right foot. When I don't start the day off on the right foot, it's a different matter entirely. That first thought of the day, the first waking act of the day is super important. For me, it's first of all, waking up. There's 3 parts to this thing. It's very basic. Wake up. That's the first piece. As corny as that sounds, I recognize when I do wake up and I recognize myself having that awareness, I go, there's somebody who's not waking up right Somebody went to bed last night, same time as I did, that didn't get this moment. In fact, even in the moment that I'm aware of that, there's somebody who's taking their last breath right there. That's no BS. That's not corny. That's the reality of it. So I go, ooh, okay. So this is something, this is different. Makes this moment different. For me, it makes it really sacred. And in that same moment, it's so easy for me to just go to gratitude. And gratitude is a strong strongest state change that I'm aware of or that has ever worked on me. And so, getting into gratitude at the beginning of the day sets me on the right foot. And then, I say something out loud. So, I want to feel grateful, but I also want to express it out loud and put that into motion, that in very strong intention. And so, what I say out loud is, I love my life. These are the 4 simple words that I shared on a TED stage about a year and a half ago, these 4 words that just have rocked my world for 12 years. It never ceases to not do its job. Like, I'm in the middle of fear, I'm doubt, or worried, or any of those kind of emotions, I just can grab onto this one buoy. And the buoy is that statement, those words, I love my life no matter what. I mean, we're in no matter what times right now for a lot of folks, right? So I'll ask you that question. Do you love your life?

I do, I do, I really do, because I built it into something that I really appreciate. So yeah, I do love my life. And you know, you come out of a— when you come out of a funk, and everybody's in a funk with COVID right now, but when you come out and you start feeling feeling good, that's when you have to tell yourself, you know what, I'm happy. Because there's not a lot of times in people's lives where they will— where they recognize what that looks like, you know. And you're probably more happier more often than you really realize, but we get bogged down by all the other stuff because we're not creatures of positivity. We have to force that out. We're not wired to be positive like instantly. We have to create it for ourselves.

Yeah, we're wired to stay alive. That's, that's

exactly—

that's our ultimate wiring is stay alive.

Yep.

And, uh, and a lot of that is just fear that drives us by instinct or otherwise to protect ourselves. So, Brenda, it's such a pleasure, and thank you. I love the conversation, so thank you.

Pleasure. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Super. Now, for folks that are wanting to leave a comment or a question, go to adamarkel.com/podcast to do that. You'll find all the show notes there as well, and the show notes from, from this particular episode will give you more information about Brenda and the work that she's doing, the company that she has, and the the way that you can interact with us. So please feel free to do that. Leave a comment. Let us know. If there's somebody that you know that would also really benefit from hearing this episode, love it if you'd share it with them. We'd love for you to subscribe, of course, but sharing it with a friend is really powerful and that's super helpful in terms of us growing this community. So again, thank you so much and we'll see you soon.

Thanks for listening. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilient relationships. resilience and become change-proof. Remember to leave a review on Apple Podcasts and you may be featured in an upcoming episode. For more resilience tips and strategies, including support for building change-proof teams, visit adammarkel.com. To get your own free resilience assessment, go to rankmyresilience.com.