The Road To Becoming A Resilient Leader With Barb Stuhlemmer

Welcome to the Conscious Pivot Podcast with international speaker, business mentor, best selling author of Pivot, and your host, Adam Markell. The Conscious Pivot shares the stories and wisdom of people who have successfully reinvented some area of their business and personal life. You'll gain powerful insights into how you can fully embrace new opportunities, increase your performance, and master the art and science of innovation and resilience. So please join Adam as he guides you on your Conscious Pivot.

Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Conscious Pivot Podcast. I'm excited, as you can tell, just excited for this moment, excited for this breath, excited for all the wonderful things that are happening at this moment. I know there's a lot that we look at today and think isn't so great in many ways, whether it's in regard to our environment, our physical environment, whether it's regarding our politics or business, money. Anything and everything kind of can be a source for complaint. And I will not lie to you and say that I don't complain sometimes, because I do. Even though I know every time I complain, it's like I could just figuratively imagine taking out a knife and just cutting, slicing my throat. Because I think that's really what complaining does. It's very self defeating. And in a workplace, we know that complaining is just toxic. I mean, it's just a tremendous toxic energy around people that are focused on what's wrong versus the solution to things. Not so much the Pollyanna side or the what's right. Even though I think it really helps to be focused on what's right, but to be grateful for the creative opportunities, the challenges present us another way to look at challenges. And I was always a big fan as a CEO and even in the company that I now run, smaller than the larger enterprises I've been involved in in the last 10 years, it's still the same. Even with a small team, managing energy is so important and to be able to, yeah, bring solutions to the table is a big deal because, you know, when you bring a problem without a solution, it really is the definition of a complaint. So I am thrilled to be able to be here with all of you today with no complaints. Absolutely no complaints. And actually, more than anything else, I have gratitude and gratitude for the conversation that I'm envisioning having with Barb Stulemer. And Barb is an incredible woman. I'm going to share a little bit about her, read some of her bio actually, and then dig right into the juicy stuff that I know you all love and I love as well. Which is really rich conversation. So in her 30 plus years with small incorporated businesses, Barb Stulemer has seen exactly how owners struggle to balance. And man, that's, that's a key term right here. Struggle to balance the requirements of growing a business with the financial and time restrictions, time restrictions that growth brings. Through her journey as a laboratory technologist, medical research assistant, then transitioning into high tech customer support and being a technical writer, Barb found that she had always been in small businesses. She defines that as being under 50 employees. She's learned firsthand the challenges that have collapsed great businesses and the wins that drive business owners to continue through adverse times. We have a word that we call, we say that ability to navigate the tough times and come out on the other side we call resilience. So what does it mean to be a resilient leader? I hope we'll get into that. I know we'll get into that. Today. Barb is a business owner herself, an author of hundreds of articles, traditionally published book, a speaker on entrepreneurship, and a college professor. She started her first full time business in 2003 and has since helped hundreds of business owners manage the planning and implementation of strategic growth and change in their businesses. And I think that's one of the most glaringly lacking aspects of most entrepreneurs or want to be or would be or whatever you want to say. It startup entrepreneurs is the implementation side. They're just really, really lacking in the skill of implementation. So without starting there, I'll just say thank you. First of all, Barb, thank you for being on the show. It's a pleasure to have you.

Oh, I am so honored to be here, Adam. This is like I told you ahead of time, I've listened to many of your shows and the people and the conversations are just so rich. And I'm honored to have that opportunity as well.

Oh, so beautiful. So I loved, I loved reading your bio and there's a lot, a lot in there. It's kind of a mem journey there. What's not written in this bio that you would love for people to know about you?

Oh, interesting. Well, it does say that I've been in small business most of my life, but I think that the kind of key to the challenges that I had over the years was that as a, when I was a teenager and a young person, I was very spiritually connected to everything that I did and you know, and I was connected to the people around me and the things that I did. And when I got into university, I just kind of focused on the tech and my whole life just kind of switched over to this idea that I had to have a good job or a good education and get a good job and make good money. And that's what life was about. And I just kind of lost touch with all these pieces of who I was. And it took me a long time. I mean, I was in my late 30s before I kind of had that moment again. And of course you refer to pivoting a lot. And that kind of moment when I realized that, you know what I really miss? The business side and the story around that is longer than that. But that business side and that connection to small business and the spiritual connection I had to. Everything that I did started coming back. And I spent a lot of time researching, paying for education on it. Anything that I could do to become better, better person so that I could help people in a different way. Because helping people was important. But I couldn't help people as a technical writer. I couldn't help people as a laboratory technologist. Like, it was interesting and it just wasn't. That, that, that piece, that relationship piece was really missing. So that, that's kind of the piece of who I am that doesn't show up in my bio any.

Yes, yes, yes. Well, I'd love to know, Barb, just what. Because you brought up the word pivot and obviously it is a big, big part of our, you know, the conversation here. What's your definition of a pivot? How would you define that?

Well, I think it. For me, a pivot is really just coming into the realization of something that you didn't have previous. And it might be the realization that you needed to make changes in your life or that you're not in the right place or so that real. And then actually taking the action. So it's kind of a two piece, you know, making the realization or finding that, that point where something's not working for you and then taking some action to whether you end up in a better place or not. May, may or may not be true, but it's the action afterwards that makes a difference.

Yeah. And I assume that you've had those pivot moments, those sort of pivot.

Yeah, I don't think you get through life without them. It would be a fairly. I mean, you'd be a teenager for your ent. You have to get to a point where you actually.

Which was painful. I just can only go by my own experience. But being a teenager was not an easy go of it. I mean, I think some of us, when we get to be a certain Age, we go, oh, yeah, I would love to go back to the time when I didn't have to have a job and respond, you know, all that, but, man, it was. It was fairly torturous to be a teenager.

I agree. I feel quite sorry for people who say, you know, these will be the best years of your life when you're a teenager, or, those were the best years of my life. And I'm thinking, if every year isn't getting better or feeling like you're adding on to life, then you really stop living at some point. And again, that's going back to the pivot. It really has to. It's a constant learning, lifelong learning, lifelong implementation. And with that, every year, I mean, when I turn 30, people, oh, my gosh, you're turning 30. How do you feel? I don't feel any different. This is great. The 20s were much better than my teens. The 30s, I'm expecting to be much better. And then when I turn 40, people are going, oh, my gosh, you're turning 40. I'm going, well, hey, 30s were better. In my 20s, I expect 40s to be better. So then when I turn 50, they're going, oh, my gosh,' you're turning 50. And I'm going. The same thing happens every time. It's like every decade just feels like it. It gets better and better because there's so much richness that you can just continue to add to your own lives.

Yeah, you know, it's. It's wonderful to hear you say that, Barb. I mean, I'm going to be a kind of a Debbie Downer, I guess, in a second, because I want to bring up a statistic, or not so much the statistic, but the. The. The increase in a statistical segment of our world that is really disturbing. And I didn't expect that maybe our conversation would go here, but when. When I see how you've laid that out, this trajectory of higher and higher ground as a human being, you know, yeah, I have my challenges in my 20s, but it was a good time. Like, I enjoyed my 20s and my 30s were also challenged, not without challenge, but they were better than my 20s, and my 40s were better than my 30s, and on and on and on. And that. That's contrasted by the stark reality that a lot of people out there are taking their lives, are. We're attempting to. So suicide rates are up. I think the statistics don't actually tell the full story of the people who've attempted it or have thought about it seriously. And then there's Another whole category of people that maybe haven't been in that place but are just unhappy or even depressed or are taking meds, you know, Xanax and other things, just to sort of get through a day, Ambien, to go to sleep and this, to get up. And I'm not knocking any of that because honestly, whatever works to keep you, you know, get you to the next day I think is important. Important on some level. And yet I think it's also important that we, that we look at that and talk about it. Because I think part of the challenge for people who are feeling that way is the feeling as well that they're alone, that somehow there's something wrong with them or that they're alone and nobody can really relate to the feeling of, you know, my life doesn't feel great. I mean, that I don't love my life. So any thoughts on that? I was kind of rambling through there.

But yeah, wow, geez, that's a huge topic. And I didn't hear that the suicide rates are going up. And that is a little shocking. I'd be interested in knowing at what age the average increase is happening at.

It's interesting because in different places in the world, it's different groups of people. So in Australia, when we first started hearing about this, my wife and I were traveling and doing some business there and we heard that it was the largest segment by increase, you know, increase wise in the suicide rate, were sort of late teens into 20s. And he thought, wow, man, okay, that's really upsetting to hear that. And then only a year or two later we're in the United States and there was a front page of the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, I can't remember where the statistics of a 15 year research study on suicide in the US was published. US and Canada was sort of North American based. And the highest increase, not the highest total number, but the highest increase were among women 50 plus years old, 50, 65. And I thought, wow, that's really disturbing to me that women at that age where I would think, you know, there's just all that goddess wisdom, there's all that, you know, understanding of life and having just all this rich life experience, you know, that to be taking your life or thinking about it, considering or trying, attempting it was really disturbing. And obviously the military, there's this ridiculous numbers about military veterans that take their life on a daily basis. Something like 22 or 23 vets that take their life every day. And then there's another demographic of very young Teenage girls, still very small number, but the uptick was significant. So any thoughts about what that might be and what the conversation ought to be there?

I mean, obviously they would be for various reasons, and in the different demographics, you certainly have various concentrations of reasons. I've been looking a lot at millennials. I teach at the college, and so I am just. I guess the millennial age is just starting to finish up. My cutoff for that age is 2004. So there's all kinds of different demographics on that and different ages and whatnot. But I find very interesting the front end of the millennial demographic and the back end are very different types of people with a very different background. The front end are most likely to have been raised by boomers, and the back end are most likely to be raised by Gen Xers. And so I think there is, because there's been so much change, and our society actually doesn't know how to manage this amount of this accelerated change that we're going through. And we don't know how to teach our children the different things that are. That they have to encounter. We try to relate them to the things that we had when we were young, which are very different than the things that they have when they're young. Like, my. My youngest is at the end of the gen, the gen Y, and maybe considered a gen Z, depending on who you're talking to. And they're the generation that has grown up, always connected. Like, there's lots of people who are always connected, but they don't know any different. They've never seen a time when their parents didn't have phones, when, you know, when you couldn't text someone. So I think that there's a lot being lost in that communications on how you connect. Like, how do we become human beings as we grow up? How do we connect on a soulful level when we can't teach our children the things that we don't understand? And so there was a lot of pressure on parents to learn not only what it is that you have to learn to become a parent, because you're a parent, right? Adam and four. Yeah, that's right. And I have three, and my niece lived with us as well. So the four at dinner, I certainly understand. And you know that. That piece, when you have children, you go, you have the first kid and you go, oh, my gosh, I've got a child. What do we do?

Like, there's no manual.

There's no manual, and there's. Lots of people can teach you, but there's just really no way to know how your interaction with your kid is going to go based on what your background is and what you've learned growing up and how you're going to interact and react. And then you have the second kid and then you have the third kid and you go, oh my gosh, we're now numbered. And like, how do you, how do you deal with this, Stu? And so you're learning this. And it's a huge learning component. I mean, every child, when they get into school has different problems. And like I'm, you know, I had learned learning different learning disabilities and different psychologies and things like, learned from my kids and I applied to my business, which works really well helping other people be able to do things. But like, I think that is a huge amount to learn. But the fact that we as Gen Xers and baby boomers would have been even more difficult, had to learn all of this tech at an age when it wasn't easy for them to learn it. You weren't growing up with it. You didn't easily get put into it. You didn't, you know, you didn't have to use it when you were a kid. Everything that you did was so much more analog. I think that there's a disconnect with relationships and teaching relationships to people who are so connected.

Yeah, it is, it is an interesting thing and we probably won't go much further down that path in this conversation, but there is, there feels like there's all this sort of online connection and offline loneliness. And so it's really an interesting thing to be observing how tied to this, the devices, we are tied to technology. And even, you know, like you say, I grew up without any of that, and yet now it's so much a part of my daily experience of living. I'm not saying I, I would choose it, but I do choose it. So it's not a matter of even whether I would. I do. I pick up the phone, I look at it, and we're constantly on it for what, quote, business reasons or what have you, but for a lot of things. And yeah, the idea that we are spending so much time sort of looking down at a device and not necessarily looking up at the world around us is. Might sound like, oh, you know, that's pretty far out stuff, but it's true. They just walk or it doesn't take a lot to look at people in your environment, around wherever you are and see where their attention is focused. I mean, at a meal, people are focused. Even in a public place, in a Restaurant, sitting at a table, and they're looking at their phones, and they're looking at their phones in the airport, and they're looking at their phones while they're walking. Literally walking. As we know, so many of us walking and texting, walking and reading a post or making a post. I mean, it's like. It's a fairly. It's fairly interesting. And it's gonna be great for sociologists to be writing about. Right. 20 years.

There's gonna be lots to research. Yes, that's for sure. And it's funny, today is actually the day that we're recording this out of is Bell Let's Talk Day, which is a big movement by Bell to bring awareness to mental illness. And I, you know, I just think I have quite a few friends that I have that have gone through something, either someone in their family or themselves, and it is. It is a difficult thing to live with. It's a difficult thing to understand. And even when you know people and you have to go through it yourself, it's still difficult to deal with.

So, yeah, yeah, I mean, look, there's that. Just that label, mental illness. And I have a client of mine who's got a foundation called Journey's Dream that's all about bringing increased awareness to mental illness. And our foundation is called Peace Feels Like. And that foundation this year is going to be committing resources to doing a youth TEDx event where kids get to just speak into and tell their stories of what Peace feels like to them as a part of bringing that conversation about, you know, about suicide and about mental. Or the times when mentally we're not. Well, see, I just feel like there's so much charge around mental illness that we lump mental illness with somebody that's diagnosed as schizophrenic or something. Yeah, right. Or has borderline or, you know, personality disorder with somebody who's just like, I've got a bit of a bad day. Yeah. And it's working through me and I'm getting better. And a week from now, I won't have a chest cold, but when I'm sick, I'm sick. So when we're not feeling well mentally about ourselves and our life and our. And we've. Whatever that looks like for people feeling lonely and without some hope or something.

Yeah.

I mean, that could also be very akin to having a flu or something. Yeah. So it's. So what's the day that we're. As you just mentioned earlier, today, it's.

Today, it's called Bell Let's Talk Day. And I'm not sure if it's specifically.

A Canadian, but let's talk. Yeah, yeah.

So if you, they donate 5 cents for every post that is put up with the hashtag. I think it's Bell. Let's talk.

And is that Bell Labs or Bell Communications?

And Communications Phone systems. Yeah, Bell Canada.

Beautiful. No, that's great to hear. So I would love to dig into your, into the pivot that took you from, I mean, so you were obviously going down a certain path at a certain point professionally and you had a moment. So what was that like?

Well, and it's funny because I think what happened, you know, I been a part of a family business. Like my family had businesses for generations and growing up to a certain point we were part of that. And then my parents both went and got blue collar jobs or white collar jobs. And you know, when I grew up I changed the way I thought about entrepreneurship. Not really realizing that every job that I had I got it because I knew the business owner. So I was always connected to the business owner. I was always kind of on the inside of what was going on. I, because they would be friends of the family, I'd know when they were having financial problems. I remember my parents had the loan friends of ours back in the 80s when the interest rates went through the roof and they, their interest rate had come up and they had a payment that needed 20% interest on it, 18% interest, I can't remember. And they were, they weren't going to be, they were going to lose their house. So I can remember, you know, they had a business that was doing really well. They hired, they had several employees and they were going to lose their house. And like getting this point where I realized, you know, this is a really tough thing for people to do. But I was still an employee at that time. So as I went through all the tech and all the, you know, all the education and the jobs working in medical device and doing technical writing, it, I came out the end, at the other end of that wanting to be more connected to my kids. And I live in a city that's just outside of Toronto and I was commuting and I tell this story a lot that I would leave at 7 o' clock in the morning. My husband may be getting my babies out of bed and I'd come home at 7 o' clock at night, he'd be putting them to bed and I'm going, why am I mother? Like why did I do this? This is crazy. I took on motherhood and I couldn't Actually even be around when my kids were up. So I decided to start a business that did technical writing for medical device and software development. And in the first six years of that business, I had other engineers that were doing technical writing for me and whatnot. But I found that I was more interested in helping my clients be able to make money on their technical writing. Like, I was interested in the business for them. I wanted to see them become really successful. And I kept seeing incredible business owners that were like, fighting to keep their businesses open, that were taking incredible products to market, that were changing people's lives. And all I was doing was technical writing. Like, it just wasn't enough. I really wanted to help them on a different level. So I spent those six years investing about $60,000 in my knowledge of how businesses worked. And that's kind of where the pivot happened. But there's a very specific story that kind of shifted me because I had no plans on actually giving up that business or not doing that work. I had been offered to take over another person's business. They wanted to sell their business, and their business was to help new business owners become successful. And she had seen in me exactly what it was that I couldn't see in myself. That the person who wants to see other people successful that cared enough to actually step up and do the work and that knew what it was that people needed, like instinctively knew it. And then my training made it easier. And during that kind of negotiations, I realized that her business wasn't the right business for me, but that I was in the wrong business. And that was like literally that weekend, it was a two day event where I just spent the whole weekend evaluating her business and what I'm doing and why I wanted to do it. And I came out of that weekend going, oh my gosh, I'm in the wrong business. I'm glad I'm in business, but I'm not doing the right thing. I can't make a difference. I'm not fulfilling my purpose. And I can't help people on the level that I know I'm able to do doing the work that I'm doing right now. And that's when I changed. And that was 10 years ago now, 2009, when that change happened.

Yeah. And that's got to be in that moment like it is for all of us when we are going to contemplate making a change. That's sort of the pivot by design is what we call. You know, there's like these terms we use, like pivot by design and then pivot by default. So when you design that pivot, there's one sort of process that you go through and, and, and your, you know, hills and valleys and things. And then sometimes when you ignore the call, you know, that urge to do something or that wisdom or guidance that seems to be coming from within, and you ignore it because fear says no. Or other people or circumstance or lack of whatever you want to call it, those limiting beliefs say no. Then sometimes those pivots happen by default. As in, you know, the universe just says, well, you don't, you don't want to change voluntarily.

That happen for you? Yeah, I feel like it's an old.

Movie, some old, like, mafia movie, or saying there's two ways we can do this here. Do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way. And I don't know that there's any easy way. But you were on the design side.

Yeah, yeah. And yeah, I don't know that it's any easier because when you're forced to do it, everybody around you has to fall in line because there's no options. So you, you may not get buy in, but you get understanding. Okay. It has to happen because whatever. But when you're designing it, you have to pitch it to everybody. So you're like, your inner salesperson has to really step up and say, okay, I'm doing this because I'm making this change. This is the benefit. And for your spouse or your partner, you have to be really clear about this because it's really hard to be. Unless you happen to be a serial entrepreneur as well. It's very hard to be a partner of someone who's an entrepreneur. When you are an employee, have an understanding of, okay, you just put six years into this business, now you're doing what? Like, this isn't a free for all. You have to make money. You have to do things. So it is difficult. Yeah.

I think the way you just turned, how you explained that was really eloquent because. Yeah. When it's not your choice on some level because your job ends or you get fired or whatever the circumstances are that lead to a change, People don't have to necessarily be bought in, but they understand it's kind of a rat. There's a rally cry because it's sort of like, okay, it's do or die time. Right. But on the design side, you've got to be a salesperson. You've literally got to get the buy in. You got to pitch what you're doing to other people because you need their involvement, you need their support, you need their understanding at a minimum. And that's a very challenging thing at times, folks.

Yeah, I think one thing that makes it better is if you're choosing to be around the right people. I mean, you can't always choose your family. So my parents didn't necessarily understood what I was doing at any point in time. In fact, most of the time they just said, oh, she's in computers.

My parents still don't really understand. When I was a lawyer, they got, oh, he's a lawyer. Yeah.

Lawyer doctor. Yes. It's easy for all of us to understand, but you know, when you're making this kind of pivot, and I do talk a lot about, you know, who is it that you spend a lot of time with. We've all heard that statement that you are the combination of the five people you spend the most amount of time with. I know that there is a doctor at Harvard University that said that 95% of your successes are failures can be contributed to who you spend your time with, your reference groups. And so I think when we, when we want to make changes that are easier for us, we need to first take it to the people who are going to support us because their buy in and their acceptance because they're going to go, oh, I'm not sure I understand. Tell me more. Make me. You know, that's really interesting. Have you thought of this? Because they're going to, they're going to buy in with you and they're going to help you find the way through it. And, and then afterwards you can go back and tell your parents or, you know, that that sibling that always thought of you as, you know, finally they're doing something crazy because, you know, they've always been the good person and now I can, I can be the good person. Whatever your relationships are. Sure. And leave them to later because you don't have to have full buy in from them. Then it makes it easier.

Yeah. In our book we call it your pivot people, the stakeholders.

Oh, okay. I like it. Yeah. Your book is on my book list. But it's. My book list is like, it just never gets shorter. Do you have that problem?

Without a doubt. Without a doubt. You know, what's helped me recently is that I love to listen to books while I'm on the elliptical machine at the gym. So I absolutely love being able to do two really positive things for my, from my, my mind and my body at the same time. And so our book, I say our because it was absolutely a Village that it took to produce the book Pivot. There's an audible version. I read the book. So it's. If you're. I don't know, not.

I like your voice that I can listen to.

Like my. Exactly right. I actually lost my voice, interestingly enough, when I read that book, because four days. It took four days to read about 70,000 words. And there was just no. You know, I'm used to speaking to people for days and days and days on end at our trainings and things like that, and I never lost my voice. But after four days of speaking into a. Into. In a room, in a soundproof room with a microphone and no interaction, no energy at all being exchanged between myself and anybody else, I went. I lost, you know, was in laryngitis mode the next week, which I'd never had happen before. So it's really interesting. So for that reason alone, go get the audible. Right.

Perfect. Thank you.

The thing I wanted to track, which is also part of the topics that we cover in the book, but relative to these times in our life when we're getting people to buy in and we're getting ourselves to buy in, this is not an easy transition for a lot of folks. And so you can become depressed. I mean, it can contribute to that feeling of, oh, I am alone. Because being an entrepreneur solopreneur can be a lonely or it can feel like a very solitary existence at times because you don't have a business that's so fully matured that you've got, you know, 100 employees and, you know, all that kind of thing going on. So. And you specialize in working with companies that are under 50 and all that kind of thing. So to me, the term that we are fascinated by and the research that we've been looking at has been incredible on the topic of resilience, of how through those times and through that period that can sometimes last years, how is it that you create resilience? So I'd love to know what your own personal understanding of resilience is, maybe even definitionally the language that you use for it and how important you think it is actually to small entrepreneurs, small business owners.

Well, yeah, resilience is a word that really becoming popular. You know, I would say it's. It's come into my awareness within the last year because it's not a word that I've used myself, and I recognize it as being very valuable. And I guess I just describe in a lot more words, not as succinct as resilience. I think I Find that, you know, when you're going through those, those pieces, particularly at the beginning of owning a business, there's that feeling of, you know, I'm not doing enough, I'm not enough, I'm not making enough money. Because when you start a job, you immediately get a paycheck, and when you start a business, you don't. And when people look in from the outside, the only way that people can judge whether you're doing well is whether you've got a paycheck or not. And so it's really easy to feel like you are not. You're not competent, you're not capable, you're not as good as other people. And that's. You were talking about the depression that comes along, and it can be very overwhelming for small business owners to manage this. You start hiring other people and they're still not getting. I have clients that, you know, I'm three years in, I've got five people working for me, I got 10 people working for me. When do I get to take a paycheck? You know, and that understanding that there's this always this piece that's really almost, almost. It feels like it's out of their control. So I think resilience is really about being able to understand what you really have control over what really is and isn't. You know, when you're not good at something and when you are good at something because you can be really good at business and still take, you know, eight months to break even and another two years before you start becoming excessively profitable. So, you know, it's. If you don't understand or know these things and knowledge makes everything a little bit easier as long as the knowledge is relevant to what you're trying to do and is real and true. I mean, just knowing things isn't enough, but knowing things that are helpful makes it easier to get through what you're trying to get through. Does that make sense?

It, it makes perfect sense. I think there's, there's a lot of parts to resilience. So the, the part that I don't, I don't hear all the way, all the time being discussed is what you just said. So it was really. That's helpful for a lot of folks to understand that you can't bury your head in knowledge gathering because I think there's a lot of sort of professional seminar goers, that kind of thing called seminar junkies and the like. And, and you can get caught up in that. I'm, I'm a learner. I'm A student. And you're perpetually a learner and a student. But we, we know that when we're sort of at college age, we'll take, you know, we'll look okay at a person who's getting that second degree in the fifth year, you know, Right. Maybe goes back to get a grad, post grad degree or whatever. But at some point, if we get to be like 35 years old and we're still attending college courses exclusively, there's. There's a problem, right, because it becomes a failure to launch situation. And we know we have to launch because it's. We learn. So talk about learning. You learn so much more in the game than you do even just looking at the game or studying the game. But what you brought up is that while you're in the game, learning can help you to feel more confident. So in the midst of feeling whatever it is you might be feeling alone or solitary or even depressed, listening to podcasts where the topic is brought up, reading material and finding out more about things and being curious, I think is a big part of how it is. You can feel more empowered, know that you're A, not alone, and B, that you've got always have options.

Yeah, it's funny because. And you may have done this for your kids when they were smaller, but I know when my kids were little, and it's funny because I also hear this from my clients is when, when something was new to them, they would say, oh, I tried that, and I'm not very good. I don't want to do it again. And I would look at them go, what? You're not an expert? You're not the best in the world at this. You've tried it once and you don't have it down pat. I don't understand. And so again, another piece of resilience is the humor. If you can add humor to the things that are going on without belittling people through humor. But I find that now my kids just roll their eyes at me and go, right, I need to do it more than once to be able to say that I actually don't like it. Which is fine. But you can never say that I can't do that because, you know, if someone's capable of doing it, so are you. I believe that we're all capable of learning something if we're interested enough in learning it and taking the time to actually practice the new actions that you have to do to make, to make yourself better at it. So I just kind of love that idea. You know, learning Isn't about. It isn't about spending time filling your head with new information. It's about how can I make my actions better, how can I become a better person at everything that I do? And that's where the learning fits into life.

Yeah, I love that, Barb. That's just terrific. I would love to know a little bit about your own personal rituals for success. And you can share one or a couple if you like. But yeah, because, you know, this is the kind of thing that buoys us in times when. So to keep the theme in place here, that where we are feeling like we're underwater just a bit, to me, this is like that buoy that you can put both arms around and it will keep you above the water. Those rituals that you have for yourself.

Yeah, well, and you spoke of gratitude earlier. So I think like one key one that is specific to me and how I spend my time when I'm alone and where my mind goes, when I want to spend time meditating is around gratitude. You know, that kind of spiritual connection, connection to the universe and that everything that is downloaded and I feel extremely wealthy in that aspect of my life. And I would say the second thing that is a big part of the ritual of how I spend my life is who I spend my life with. So again, back to this. The people that I spend time with, there are people in my life and we all have them that are, you know, they have their own way of doing things and they don't completely align. But I love them anyway. But I don't spend huge amounts of time with them because the people that energize me that I can spend, you know, an hour with or three days with, and I'll still leave with more energy and more ideas and I'll feel better about myself and they'll feel better about them. Like, we just work in a synergy. So I have selected people that are, you know, as I go through my life and I check in with them regularly. So I have four people that I check in with on a regular basis and we have phone calls on a regular basis. And some of them are local enough that we can actually get together on occasions. And some of. Some of us aren't. If we see each other once a year or once every couple years, that's fine. But we see each other in zoom once a week or once a month. And it makes a huge difference when you can describe what's going on in your life with someone who is going to listen, is going to understand, is not going to get you let you get away with just poo, pooing yourself all the time. So they're going to make you step up and they're also going to, they're going to celebrate the wins with you and they're going to feel with you when things aren't really going the way that you want. So it's, it's. I find it very important.

That's so beautiful too, Barb. That's a really tangible and tactical piece of advice that you just gave to everybody. I know, it's how I think. So I'm sort of restating it for the purpose that I think people should want to write that down. Remember that. To have a regular group of people, those people that you're curating that environment with for that purpose, where, as you say, they're holding you to a higher standard, helping you hold yourself to a higher standard. So celebrating the wins with you and doing all that great stuff is terrific. I mean, Yogananda said long, long ago that environment is stronger than will. So that environment is so very important. The people that are around us and the environment that we create for ourselves in every waking moment that we have. And we get to do that at the beginning of every day. And so today we all got to wake up, which was an incredible gift. Tremendous. Like you said, gratitude. I am, I am grateful that you woke up today, darling. And I am grateful that I woke up. And I am grateful that everybody that is checking this out right now and listening, maybe watching, etc. Woke up to the day. And what a blessing that is. And we hopefully, and this is my prayer now, that we all get to do that again tomorrow. And I would love for everyone when you do wake up tomorrow that you have some moment, just even a brief moment as you're lying in bed. This is my waking ritual. That you have this awareness for just a moment, that it is in fact special. It's a sacred moment, it's a holy moment. Not religious if that isn't your bag, but it's spiritual to me that, that you realize that there is something really not ordinary at all and not, certainly not something to be taken for granted of, that you're given another day. And in that moment where you have that awareness, if you're also inclined to create an even more rich context for your day, this is a ritual that you can start your day with that creates a context and environment on an internal level, and that is to put your feet on the floor and take 10 seconds to feel appreciation for yourself, Love, unconditional love. And appreciation for you and then maybe even declare these words out loud. I love my life. I love my life. I love my life. Barb, do you love your life?

Oh, my gosh, I do love my life. And when I heard you say that the first time when I was listening to one of your other podcasts, I thought, well, that is so beautiful. And I totally agree. The first time I ever learned that, and I would say it's about 20 years ago, in that transitional time in my late 30s, when I said to myself, the first time I love my life, I remember crying. I couldn't understand why I'd never said this before. And I'm actually feeling a little bit sensitive about it right now. It is such a beautiful moment when you realize that you can love yourself first and what a difference it makes on how you show up for other people.

Yes, it's the ultimate giving. It's a very interesting riddle. As we know, we live long enough, we realize life is just filled with riddles. This is just one of them. So what a blessing to have you on the show today. Thank you for being our guest.

Thank you so much for having me.

Awesome, Barb. We'll see you guys soon. Ciao for now. Of course, as always, we'd love to get your comments, so AdamMarkel.com podcast leave a comment There'll be full show notes as well, so you can find out more about Barb and her business and the way that she works with small business owners and entrepreneurs. So please go ahead and read the show notes as well and join our facebook page@startmypivot.com it'll get you right to the front door, but we'll see you very soon. Ciao for now. Bye, everybody.

Thanks for listening, everyone. We hope, we hope you now have the tools and greater insights to navigate your own pivot. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over@adammarkel.com podcasts for more tips, strategies, and support as you consciously pivot into a new business and lifestyle you love. Join our Pivot community on facebook@pivotfb.com.

Sam.