The Right Pivot To Living A Meaningful Life With Donna Steinhorn - REPLAY

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.

Our theme this month is self-mastery and wellness. And to that end, please enjoy the replay of my conversation with Donna Steinhorn. Donna is an executive mentor and life coach with more than 30 years of corporate and business experience. She divides her time between her one-on-one clients, developing leading conferences and workshops, and multiple projects. She is also the co-founder of Serendipitous Events, which produces the invitation-only Conversation Among Masters, and Camelot annual events, and the co-founder of the nonprofit Coach Initiative, whose mission it is to be the central gathering point where professional coaches can volunteer their experience and expertise in support of global projects that focus on the betterment of the human condition and uplifting the human spirit. She's also a board member of the Transformational Leadership Council Founded by Jack Canfield, so leaders of personal and organizational transformation could support each other in their contributions to the world. Some of the things that we discussed were her journey from working in HR to learning about self-development and its power, behavior and how people adapt and change, 2 questions to reframe change you've assumed was negative. What is the creative opportunity in change? And what does it enable you to do? As well as her experiences with some of the people that she's worked with and the lessons that she has learned from them. Again, enjoy the replay of my conversation with Donna Steinhorn. So Donna, I am so happy to have you join us. You're on the East Coast. I'm on the West Coast. I think today it's one of those odd situations where the weather in Southern California is probably worse than it is in New Jersey.

Well, thank you for having me here, Adam. Yeah, it's been a very strange weather year.

Yeah, well, we've been in drought. I mean, and like so many things in life, you can see the cycles if you live long enough, God willing, and you have enough perspective. You can see the trends and the cycles and things. And we were in a trend and a cycle of drought in Southern California for many years. And this year we've gotten enough rain that I believe there's only a few spots in the entire state of California that are not officially out of drought. So Mother Nature has delivered the rain that was so desperately wanted and needed as well. And so even though I, I love the sunshine and, and all that kind of thing, it is beautiful to have to see the cycle repeat itself and to know that there are So many living things that are feeling very blessed by all the rain that we've gotten. So it's good to be out of drought. That's one of those things where we go through cycles of drought and we go through cycles of flood, you know, when they— when all the channels are producing, and then other times when some of those channels, including the channels that bring us our money and other things, are lacking at points in time. So, Donna, it would be wonderful if you could sort of set the stage just with a little background on yourself, anything that I missed in that introduction, because I know you've been involved in business either directly as a business owner, an entrepreneur, but also in coaching so many executives and other folks over the years. I would love it if you'd set the stage by sharing a little bit about your personal background and history.

Sure. Well, I actually started out life in corporate America out of college. Did a lot of HR and training actually pretty early on, learned that people could actually learn new habits and learn to change and began watching and observing the patterns that people had in their lives and when the patterns worked well and when the patterns didn't work well. I actually started reading self-development, personal development books when I was 15. So I got started in the industry pretty early. While I still had my own businesses and at that point was working from home, my children were in high school and I suddenly realized that in a few years they would be out of high school and life was going to change whether I wanted it to or not. And I had sort of a moment of, oh no, what's next? Now, I'd always been a person that did a lot of things and change was actually a normal part of my life. Basically lasted in most jobs 3 years. The first year I was learning, the second year I was coasting, and the third year I was bored to death. And that's because none of them really spoke to my soul. So I would kind of not bounce from something to thing, but I would always find a way of taking what I had been doing it and sort of bridging up into something new that included perhaps what I had been doing. So here I was, it was the mid-'90s. And I had this moment of I had no idea of what was next. In the past, I'd always had multiple ideas of what I wanted to do, and now suddenly I was going to have a lot of freedom and I had no ideas. And someone mentioned to me that there was this thing called life coaching. Now, I had known about coaching because even back in the '70s when I was in corporate America, top management often had a coach. It was usually a perk. It was expensive. And it was not discussed. It was hush-hush because generally it was to either teach them some soft skills or teach them presentation skills or, you know, sort of kind of polish them up so that they had a better image. So it wasn't really much talked about, but I knew about coaching. And so when someone said that there was this thing called life coaching, my ears kind of perked up and I said, well, you know, how do you do that? And isn't it really expensive? And someone said, you know what, there's this woman in Wisconsin. She charges $25 a session and she talks to you over the phone and, you know, she coaches you. And I thought, okay, you know, that's worth a try. And so I contacted the woman and we had our first session and I was frankly quite underwhelmed. And we had a second and third session and I realized at the third session that the last 2 sessions I'd actually been coaching her. And the light bulb went off over my head. That this might be something that I could do. I seemed to be rather good at it. I actually had been coaching people all my life. And so in those days, the internet actually existed, for those of you who are millennials and think that it just kind of happened now. And so I did what I generally still do, which is I got on the internet and I started researching coaching. And I came up with— actually, there were about 3 schools that taught coaching at the time, and I did some research and I picked one and attended. It was, I think, about— it took me 2 years to get through the program. It was pretty intensive. And I then got involved in another organization that was led by a man by the name of Thomas Leonard, who's no longer around. Anybody who's listening who's been a longtime coach will recognize the name. And I started working with him along with some other people, and, and the rest is history. I became a coach and I worked with Coachville and started my own coaching organizations. And here we are today, you know, more than 20 years later, happily still at it.

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I would love to unpack that just a little bit too with you, Donna. So you were in a situation where you were not certain what your future was going to be like or what you were going to be doing. Let's say you had learned along the way that you kind of, you know, you were going from flower to flower, so to speak, pollinating. And as you said, I love that 3-year cycles of, uh, you know, the first year you were learning, the second year you were coasting, and the third year you were bored. Is Did I get that right?

You did. Sometimes it didn't take that long. My shortest job lasted 6 weeks.

So you cycle through the process just quickly. Very much different. Yeah. And I'm— look, we have that in common. I have had a lot of jobs. I was a junior high school English teacher and a lifeguard and a waiter. And then I went back to law school and all that kind of thing too. And— but you got to a certain place where The kids were leaving and you were looking at what's this next phase and stage of my life going to be. And sort of before the light bulb went off, I'm just curious if there was anything that you could look back on and say to yourself that you did something that sort of set you up for that successful light bulb moment, or was it just one of those things that you can't explain?

I think, as I mentioned, I started reading personal development books Maxwell Maltz and several others when I was 15. And so I'd always had an interest in the patterns of people and how people changed and, you know, neuro— neurolinguistic programming. And nowadays it would be brain science. I've always been fascinated by people and how they behave and what helps them to change. And change has always fascinated me, how people adapt or rebel. And so that was already there in the bottom. And as I said, even in my first corporate engagement, even though I wasn't hired as a trainer, about a year in, I went to the training department and I said, I love what you do. I love attending. Can I kind of apprentice to you at times? And so the whole concept of helping people change is something that I adapted early on in adulthood. So the seeds were there. And when the person said to me, there is such a thing as a life coach, you know, it's a burgeoning— it's a baby industry at that point. Those seeds kind of began to take root, if you will. So it was always there. It was just that that lightbulb moment kind of helped them grow faster.

Right.

I think actually the fact that the woman that I spoke spoke to, the woman, the coach out in the middle of the country, the fact that she was so bad really kind of inspired me.

Hey, look, whatever motivates you, right? Whatever inspires you. And sometimes the things that inspire us are even examples of what not to do or what doesn't work necessarily. And we realize, hey, I could do that and I could do it more effectively or better or whatever it is. So yeah, that's a great example of something that you kind of turned around a situation where you could have clearly just been— you could have got a judgment like, well, coaching is bogus. I just wasted my $25 for each

of

these 3 sessions, and the whole coaching thing is kind of a joke. But you didn't make that judgment about it, that you started reading. So one of the nuggets that I would pull out of that You were a reader, you were a learner, you were curious, in other words.

I am terminally curious.

And I think that that idea of reading is a big deal because a lot of the people who are listening to this podcast right now, I mean, I'm just— the statistics will bear this out. Many of the people listening to this do not read books. Now, it's great because people are listening to a podcast that might not— otherwise get some access to this information. So, the podcast is a great vehicle. And so, that's wonderful because listening to a podcast is the equivalent of, again, seeking an expression or an outlet for your curiosity. Now, I love reading. And now, of course, because the technology is what it is, I don't just read books, physically read them, which I love to do and mark them up and dog-ear them and make them unusable basically for anybody but me. But I also love to listen to books on Audible. It was a pleasure for me when I was asked by Simon& Schuster to actually read. It took 4 days. I lost my voice doing it, which is shocking, shocking actually, because of all the training that I do. And I never thought I would lose my voice just speaking, speaking a book into a microphone. But yeah, 4 days later, spoke the book in and now it's an Audible. So reading, listening to books, listening to podcasts, I think that's a key ingredient. So I think anybody listening to this, It's a good sign for yourself, no matter where you are in your own process of change and managing change, that you're seeking inspiration as Donna did by reading at that point in time, reading those personal development books. And then the other thing that I think, Donna, that is really important is that you followed your curiosity. Like, it's one thing to be curious, and then it's another thing entirely. It's a completely different skill set, I would say, like a completely different universe of skills. skill sets between a person that is curious, generally speaking, and one that follows their curiosity to go do the research, like you said, and then start to just explore it in a deeper way, which sounds like exactly what you did.

I would say I am definitely insatiably curious and I can't control that curiosity. So if we're at dinner and we're discussing something and something comes up and nobody knows the answer, admit, and maybe it's not a good thing, but I'll pull out my phone and I'll Google it so that I have the answer right away. And then I'll leave that so that when I get home, I can go dig deeper. And, you know, I just want to say it's not necessary to even read a book if you're curious. I mean, there are so many articles on the internet if you're not a full book-length reader. And you can always, if there's something you're really curious around, you want to learn more about, you can always set a Google alert. And so whenever there's an article or something that comes up or news or anything related, you'll get an email and you can go and dig deeper. So you don't even have to do a whole lot of research. Google will do it for you if you want.

Exactly. Google Words, and you set it, and then every single day whenever that word or that term is used, you get access to all the articles, like whether it's articles or it's blogs or anything, it all comes up in that feed, which is really amazing.

Yeah, it is. So in that same way, I think, you know, I guess as a professional coach, I'm curious about my clients. And so I try and teach them to be curious about themselves. Or, you know, an amazing thing happens and you get that lightbulb moment. But more often than not, it takes a little curiosity about yourself and a little delving into yourself.

And that in itself is a big step. And I can't really say this enough because we are constantly teaching it so much, is that the world is in this state of profound change. I mean, I personally believe that the rate of change, that change is constant and the rate of that change is exponentially greater every day. And I think people are having some challenges with that change. And as you said, there's sort of 2 types of change that occur, one that you plan for and one that you don't. Yeah. The thing that changes and you're not expecting it, like your job, you know, you're terminated from your job or your business goes south or the economy is changing or the political scene is changing or your health, you know, there's a health issue that comes up.

Or you win the lottery. It can be a positive change as well.

My goodness. It can be. Look, I got an email this morning out of the clear blue from a producer in New York that wants to, that is creating a pilot show. with a major network and they did some research and sent me an email saying they think I would be perfect to be the host of this show that's all about people reinventing. And you go, okay, so that came out of nowhere. Didn't expect it, right? And as you said, you could spin that. You could say that's positive, right? But I kind of look at these things as often as possible as neutral, which is not easy because when you've got something that seems like it's A bad news situation, a change that you're not wanting, let's say, it's very easy to sort of get into a place where you frame it as being something that's going to cause you harm versus something else. And what was triggered for me as I was listening to you describe was this question that I think when you're in that space of maybe not knowing because you realize that change is on the horizon because you want it, or change has shown up on your doorstep and you didn't expected. There's a very specific question that I think everybody can ask themselves where they are right now even, and that is, what is the creative opportunity?

Yep.

Do you agree with that?

Yeah, I was going to say, you know, either one of two questions basically saying the same thing that I will ask people, and one is, what is the opportunity here? And the other is, what does this enable you to do? Because sometimes they're not sure what the opportunity is. But if you say, all right, so now that you're out of a job, what does that enable? Well, I have more time. Okay. So, if you have more time, what does that mean? Sometimes, and I would say 40% of the time, that high, people have no idea. They really, they're so out of touch with what they want or what they need or what they value that when you ask them about opportunity or what does this enable, or even, you know, what is it you want in life? They have no idea. And then the question is, so what is it you don't want?

Exactly.

So yes, I think opportunity is a good question, but sometimes you have to go further.

I couldn't agree more. And it's very interesting that you brought that up because I don't know that Abraham Hicks is the person who originally said this, but perhaps so. I love listening to Abraham from time to time. It's been a while since I've listened to her, actually, but I remember and will never forget The statement that she made, which was that when you know what you don't want, you know what you do want.

Exactly.

And it's a profound exercise. It's actually something that we lead people through as part of this pivot process that we teach, is that it's more powerful to know what you don't want in life because it gives you great clarity about what it is you do want.

Absolutely. 100%.

Yeah, it's very— you know what? I'm inspired by what I'm hearing right now, Donna, to ask you to do something which we didn't prepare for. In all transparency, I asked Donna, I said, you've got some incredible experiences of working with people, coaching people, people in business, people in other areas of their life. So, we'll get to Donna sharing some of those stories as well. But Donna, in just a minute, if somebody were on the line with you right now, and we don't have a live caller, but a lot of people listening, almost every place that I'm honored to be at as a speaker or in some way as part of a group, and I get to ask this question. of how many of you are reinventing some aspect of your business or your life right now. It seems like almost every hand goes up. I don't know if you've been noticing that in any of your communications with folks, but it seems very prevalent that people are in the midst of change, great change right now. You know, sort of what to do next without knowing the details. Are there some sort of general principles that you would coach them into? And maybe we've said a few of those things, but I wanted to just See if there's anything else there that you would do as a coach.

There are, you know, it depends whether it's relationship or personal or business or life transitions of other kinds, going through a divorce. I mean, there's just all kinds of things. One of the things that I will often ask is to have them describe to me just an ideal day. Like if they could do anything tomorrow, what would they do? If it was something that would happen, not just like a vacation day, But, you know, if every day could be the same, start out the same, have the same rituals, have the same things in their life, what would that look like? And most people have that fantasy, which can easily become a reality with a little adjustment. So, that's one of the questions. Another question I might ask is, so, tell me about an ideal vacation, because that takes them out of the fear of not knowing what they want. Most people can tell you What they like about vacation. And then I say, well, what about that? You know, do you wish you could do on a daily basis? So if you take people out of their current situation, whatever it is, a bad relationship, a job they're unhappy with, or, or a job that they're happy with, but they want to do better. We don't— it's not always a negative. It's sometimes a positive. But if you can take them out of the situation they're in where they're confused or they keep trying to do the same things over and over again because they feel that that's how it should be, and you put them into a fantasy realm where they can just relax and be comfortable and not worry whether it's the right answer or not, very often you're surprised with what they come out with.

And part of that, Donna, is because they have certain— they've got some limiting beliefs that are working in that mix, and so you're kind of pulling them out of that. The habitual way that they're thinking?

Limiting beliefs and story tapes that they run through. A lot of people I find have this story about what their life should look like. You know, they should want to climb the corporate ladder, or they, you know, they have a job that they're really happy in, but, you know, they're not making a lot more money and they're not getting a higher title, and they should be doing that. So there are lots of shoulds that go on as well. So yeah, it's limiting beliefs. It's old stories. stories and its old goals or living life according to other people's prescriptions.

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.

What is the situation that you're in? Those 2 questions: what is the creative opportunity and what does this enable you to do?

Right.

It could be that it's— you're being sort of birthed into something new. And bigger, even better for yourself. But of course, it's new and it's different and it's uncertain. And with uncertainty, people automatically have fear associated with what's uncertain or unknown. Is that your experience? Yeah,

it's true. But it's not always bigger and better. Sometimes it's smaller.

Share those with us if you could. That's fascinating.

I'd love to. So many years ago, I was working with someone who was a partner. in a firm and not a senior partner, but a partner. And the work that he was doing, he really did not like. It was labor-intensive. It was boring. He had plenty to do. In fact, so much to do that he was never acquiring new business and therefore he wasn't climbing the partner ladder. And at the point that he came to me, he had been divorced and he was now getting remarried. And he wanted to make sure that this new relationship didn't go the way the first one did and that, you know, I could give him strategies to last the 7 years until he could retire because he was miserable. And as we worked together, it turned out that the first marriage had ended because he worked so many hours and was never home and wasn't a good spouse and wasn't a good parent. And He was afraid that that would happen again because he was still working as many hours. And I asked him at what point, what he wanted to do in 7 years when he retired, and he wanted to move to Martha's Vineyard. That's what he wanted to do. He and his wife were going— new wife— were going to retire there. And I asked him what stopped him from going there now, and the light bulb went off over his head. And the only thing that stopped him was that He was a partner in this law firm. He didn't have to be. And ultimately, he sold his partnership back to the firm, moved to Martha's Vineyard with his new wife, apologized to his first wife, opened a storefront law firm, and is still happily working in Martha's Vineyard. He didn't need to climb and become a bigger partner and work more hours. He needed to do what his soul needed. He needed to be nurtured by being in the environment he wanted to be in. And all he needed to do was figure out how to do that.

Well, having been in the law, in the practice of law for almost 20 years, I'm sitting here and I'm just nodding up and down thinking to myself, do I know that guy? And I say, do I know that guy? Because I might actually know that guy. Randy and I have had a house on Martha's Vineyard for a lot of years, and we know a bunch of lawyers there. And, and I was a pretty unhappy lawyer at the time when we bought that house. So reinventing away from the grind and the rat race and the incessant quest for more things, more money to buy more things. I hope everybody's really getting this, is that a place where you have more happiness, however you define that, how you have more success in however you define that. more peace. It can be more, you know, better relationships, better health, whatever that might look like. Sometimes the road to that is not in sort of having a bigger job or bigger paycheck, but really is in simplifying and getting, as you said, back to something that is more of a calling from the soul than it is necessarily buying into the shoulds or the stories that we've been programmed. with for many years. So have you kept in contact with that particular client?

I get a Christmas card every year.

Happily, happily enjoying life on the islands.

Yes, very much so.

Well, that's absolutely beautiful. So you said you had another client, that story where also they sort of were simplifying in some way their life.

I have a lot of stories about people both in corporate America and in their own practices where rather than give you another specific example of that, because I have another example to give you about personal relationships. Very often when people are miserable at work, they're striving for something that they think they should have, as I said earlier, but it's not really what they want. And so very often, if you can get them in touch with having more of a life, they can then have a lot of clarity as to whether they want to climb the corporate ladder or they should just stop and just do the best job they can in the job that they're in and focus more on their life than they do on their corporate life. Because a lot of people are so wrapped up into the identity of their title That they lose sight of their life. And I, you know, I had a recent client who did exactly that and didn't get the promotion that they had been striving so hard to get and became even more despondent and unhappy. And when we started looking at what they really wanted, what they really wanted was a vacation house to get away from how miserable they were at work.

Yeah.

And while they didn't quit work to go live full-time there. They're now in the process of developing a business that is portable so that eventually in a year or two, they can quit their corporate role and transition into their own business and then travel or live out of there. But they recognize that corporate life is really not serving them.

Yeah, it's very interesting. I think one of the most important aspects of this is that people can that they can maintain their hope for a better future. I think where it gets to be difficult is when people get despondent, and it's because there seems to be a lack of anything that would lead to a new way of living or a better way of living really for them. For me, I was the proverbial workaholic and unhappy for many, many years, and I couldn't see a path to anything different. I looked, in fact, at the people that were in my profession and they were only grayer or had less hair than me, which is kind of funny since I'm bald, but I wasn't always bald and I wasn't bald when I started practicing law, funny. But looking 20, 30 years down the line at what could be my future and would likely be my future, if you look at your mentors and things, you're likely to turn out like that. I was unhappy with what that would look like. I mean, these folks were not happy and they had health issues and poor marriages, and none of the money that was accumulated was really an answer to those deeper issues and that suffering. And so, for me, what I found was that at a certain point, I was able to create a plan, a Plan B, in essence, that took 2.5 years for it to actually kind of materialize to the point where I knew that I was going to stop at some point. I would be able to stop doing what was no longer serving me or working or what was in fact causing me suffering, and I would be doing something else. And I think that's part of what is really impactful and why coaching, the work that you do, is so important. Because where we are at any given point in time, we can lack clarity, and especially when it comes to The evolution of our work life, our careers, even the evolution of our own personal and spiritual development, we can be lacking in clarity or a bit lost from time to time. And so, I think I agree with you 100% that clarity is the first step. In fact, what does it then take once you've got clear vision? How do you get into momentum? How do you create a purpose-driven plan for yourself? And it sounds like some of the folks you've been coaching along the way have had that same thing where they had to gain some clarity. They used you as a, I would imagine, an incredible resource for them in uncovering and discovering clearly what it is that they really wanted, even if what they wanted might be whether to move to an island and just create a simpler version of their life or whatever that would look like, but that clarity came first. And that they had to work through that clarity piece. I know for me it took a long time to get clarity, and it really is the case that we can't rush that because if you move to strategy too quickly, if you move to the planning stage before you have a clear vision, chances are you're just kind of applying a Band-Aid solution to it. Has that been your experience with folks as well?

Absolutely. It either takes a long time and lots of books, or it takes the help of a coach or a trainer or a workshop or something. To begin to get the clarity. But I also do want to clarify for your listeners that it's not, you know, not everybody needs to leave corporate America and go do something else. Very often, clients will come to me or a corporation will hire me because there's somebody who wants to be promoted and they're not doing what they need to do to be promoted. And I don't mean they're not doing their job well, but there are other aspects that are happening, or somebody will hire me individually. And there are things going on that they're not addressing, and they don't have clarity about what that is, or they just can't see into the mirror of what's going on. And so then we look to see very much what are their attitudes and where— and this is what you said earlier— where are their limiting beliefs stopping them from breaking out of old patterns and moving ahead and, you know, getting that promotion. And I had a client just A couple of years ago who I am still in touch with, who had been trying to be promoted for years, and she was threatening to leave, and they didn't want her to leave. She was great at her job, but she lacked some interpersonal skills. And so we worked on that, you know, and there are things that you can do, or management skills or sales skills, you know, that there are lots of resources out there for people who want to build their business or want to climb in corporate America.

Yeah, that's a beautiful distinction. And a question that I think fits well, but you let me know if you agree with this, just a question that came to my mind is one I heard years ago, and it's this one: what don't I see? Because part of what I think you're saying is that when you're even in, let's say, within the same occupation or the same career path, it could be that there are things that you're just not And the purpose of, and this was certainly true for me, of reading books and of getting coached and being in workshops and seminars is that you've got blind spots. And so, one thing we know for sure is every result you've got so far is the effect of your best thinking, meaning our best thinking's gotten us every result so far. So, if there's more that we're looking for, like we want to be in a better position within a company or somehow we want to move our our career forward or anything that's on that list of goals for ourselves. You know, there are blind spots that we've got and there wouldn't be blind spots if we could see them. So we really need to ask that question, what don't I see? Does that make sense to you?

That makes a lot of sense. And sometimes you need help, whether it's from a professional or someone in your life. I recently read something in a blog where the person went off and asked all of the people around them, what they saw in her that she didn't see in herself and got a lot of interesting answers. As you know, and it was a big aha for her. If I can uncover the blog, it was a couple of days ago, I'll send you a link. But it was fascinating. And yes, you know, blind spots, lots and lots of blind spots.

Well, I would love to take our remaining time that we've got to sort of shift into something that's a bit of a related topic. Change, same thing. Managing change can be— you can do it elegantly, you can do it in a graceful way, and of course, you can resist it and you can struggle with it. Struggle is possible and struggle is optional. So, it really is, I think, very important that we— if there's— to the extent that there are ways to manage change in an easy way, in an elegant way, in a graceful way, What are the common elements of managing it in that way? And among people that have succeeded, and by succeeded, I just mean folks that have been able to overcome challenges in life to move themselves to higher levels of performance, raising their consciousness, raising the bar in terms of what they've been able to do with their professional lives, what they've been able to do in their personal lives, with their families, in any number of ways, the people who have been successful have been able to overcome difficulties that other people might not be able to overcome. And so, when I've looked at that in my own life and I've studied it in other people who've been successful in sports, have been successful in business, and in other personal pursuits, there's been something of a common denominator. And that thing that I've discovered is Rituals. And when I say rituals, I'm not talking about religious in a religious context. I really, when I think about rituals, I think about master habits and the distinction from ordinary habits being that ordinary habits are things that we do by habit, that they're unconscious, that they're involuntary. And I read somewhere that like around 45% of the things that we do, the things we think and what we say and the actions that we take are actually involuntary. Whereas a master habit or a ritual is something that we choose to do. We consciously elect to make that a practice in our lives, and therefore it has more of a sacred quality to it. And so I'd ask you, Donna, if you have rituals and things that you practice that have helped you to be successful and maybe even have helped some of your clients be successful. So I'd love it if you'd share some of those things with us.

Sure. Absolutely. Yeah. I think rituals are extraordinarily important even for small things. So very often I will encourage clients have rituals for their morning routine and their bedtime routine because it helps set up their day for success and it helps set up their night for better sleeping. And so I try to do that for myself as well. So I have a nighttime ritual that includes reading, it includes a little internet, but at a certain point, the internet goes off. I turn the light down really soft. I very often have lavender or some other aromatherapy going. I usually have some sort of soft music going and I'll read for a little while. And I find if I do that habitually every night, I sleep much more soundly and I fall asleep much more easily. And when I don't do that, either because, you know, I'm watching TV and got involved in something that I'm watching, or I get involved in the book and I don't want to put it down, or whatever, If I don't do my ritual, I don't do as well. And I find that that's true for my clients as well. When they're able to do their evening ritual, the next day works much better because the night does. And same thing for the morning. I have a ritual around my cup of coffee. I try to get up early enough so that I have half an hour just to whether it's meditate or listen to music while I drink a cup of coffee, but I don't I don't read email first, and I don't look at the news first, and I don't do anything that would start my day off negatively at all. I try and just do positive rituals in the morning.

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 and emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today.

I'm not sure who it was that said this, but I heard it on a podcast with Tim Ferriss. He said, if you win the morning, you win the day. That's been true for me. I think it's I think it's true for a lot of people that the morning time is key. So, I have a gratitude ritual. Our folks, I've shared that with our audience before, but it really is so important to me that whatever those rituals are that you start your day with once, they're not just things that you do, as you say, habitually, like picking up the phone and checking email and turning on the TV. I mean, if that's part of your ritual to do and you want to do it, that's kind of different.

I actually have a gratitude ritual as well. I try and do 5 a day, but it's not part of my morning routine. It's more part of my afternoon routine.

Beautiful. Well, I mean, I think this is something really interesting too, is that rituals are personal. So what works for one person isn't necessarily the right recipe for someone else. But what I think is really interesting in the conversation is the fact that when you elect To create these rituals, you're, in essence, you're like creating your day. I mean, you're going about a very deliberate process to create the day that you wish to have from beginning to end, like the bookends of what you do in the morning and what you do at the end of the day, and then the meat in the middle, the sandwich parts in the middle, putting it all together. So, for me, it's gratitude at the beginning of the day, and it's forgiveness at the end of the day. So the last thoughts that I put in my brain before I go off to sleep at night are just thoughts of, I want to ask for forgiveness and give gratitude, actually be thankful for forgiveness of me and anything that I might have done during the day that were trespassing in any way upon anyone else. And then also asking and being grateful to the universe for the forgiveness that is there for all of us. So, that's just— the thought goes in before I go to sleep. Wake up, feet on the floor, and grateful for the day. And I was with Michael Beckwith the other day, and he was sharing part of his rituals, which was really great. And he added something to it that I loved, and I'll share it now. He said when he wakes up in the morning, he gets into that space of gratitude, and he's quiet. And he sits quietly and asks God for his assignment. He specifically asks the question, what is my assignment? And then waits quietly to just be guided, you know, whatever it might be that comes up for him. And I thought, well, that's a beautiful ritual. And so I think it's really fascinating that we all have different rituals, but again, the commonality is in this design feature— a life, a life by design versus a life by default.

Absolutely. I think that's a great distinction. And I think that what's What's really important is how the rituals fit in with what you consider to be your success. You mentioned that earlier and it occurred to me as you were talking that my success statement is I know how successful I'm being by how eager I am to wake up and greet the day. And I think the morning ritual is really what helps that for me because I look forward to my morning ritual and I look forward to my day because I've designed my life to enjoy most of the parts of my life, to enjoy my work, to enjoy my relationships. And so my success statement isn't about money or power or fame. It's really about enjoying how I've set my life up to be, and my rituals help that.

Yes, it's an art. The more days I get, the more I am blessed to have another day in this life, the more I'm convinced that living successfully is an art. There's an art and a science even to successful living. And that's part of what we're really talking about. We talk about career. We've talked about people who are sort of simplifying their lives, and then there are others that are wanting to really you know, pursue their goals and dreams in a bigger way and within their career space or in other places, creating plan Bs for, you know, a new venture, a new business, etc. Because it's clear that we're here. I think it's clear that we're here to be the expression of the abundance of the universe, of the infinite possibility of the universe, of the divine in essence. And so to the extent that Any of us are just not happy to greet the day the way you just explained, where you're just not enthusiastic about the day that you've been given, this gift, this profound gift that you've been given, that's a wonderful thing to take notice of. I went through too many years of putting my feet on the floor in the dark with my beautiful wife, you know, asleep next to me and putting my feet on that floor and feeling dread. And even anxiety about the day ahead. And that's what ultimately— it was that pain, that dull but persistent pain, that caused me to question and be curious and to follow that curiosity, which has led to all these other magnificent iterations, you know, version 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 of the life, of this life for me. And I think create and be more awake. And in that process of being more awake, that we can be guided to this yet a further development and expression of ourselves and our reason for being. So Donna, I couldn't thank you. I cannot thank you enough for spending time and sharing your, you know, just some, just a little snippet of the wealth of experience that you have, both, you know, in your own personal experience, but in that experience of guiding people and coaching people. Thank you. professionally and personally. So I would love it if you would share with our audience, if folks would love to know more about you and maybe even be able to utilize your services in the future, what's the best way to reach you? Is there a website or something like that we can go to?

The best one is my website is donnasteinhorngroup.com.

And would you spell your last name for folks?

Sure can. S-T-E-I-N-H-O-R-N.

Beautiful. So donasteinhorngroup.com.

That's it.

Beautiful. Donna, what a pleasure.

Always fun, Adam.

It is.

Thanks for listening, everyone. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilience and become change-proof. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over at adammarkel.com/podcast. For more resilience tips and strategies, including support for building change-proof teams, visit adammarkel.com/becomechangeproof.