Brian Gubernick reflects on Adrienne Haslett's shift from chasing a ballroom-dancing career to defining success as health, family, and daily joy. She uses three tools: a morning mantra asking what her head and heart need, a record-player analogy to break negative thought loops, and logging tiny wins like folding laundry to build momentum.
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Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. All right, it's our last and final episode breaking down the Adrian Haslett interview that we did just a handful of days ago. Be sure to go back and listen to that interview. Maybe you listened to it once already. It might be one to go back to and listen to again. It was that good. Adrienne is so impressive, someone that's overcome so much adversity, more adversity than we even covered, believe it or not, in that interview. There is more to the story, but she is just a— such a special person, so inspiring, and has just accomplished so much after such tragedy. It's, it's truly remarkable. Truly remarkable. One of the questions I had asked Adrienne, I asked her, um, in that interview, do you think it's possible to have it all? You think it's possible to actually be healthy and happy? Is it possible to have good relationships with your family and friends and be uber successful in business and whatever else? And if you do think it's possible, what does it take? What does it take to be, to have it all in the manner I just described it? And I got a really, really interesting answer out of Adrienne, as you may recall. Adrienne redefined for me, she said, hey, I think it really depends. On your definition of all. Like, what does it mean having it all? And she had explained that in the world in which she grew up in, this ballroom dancing world, it was a lot of glitz and glamour, and it was heavily based on looks and appearance. And, and she had this, this vision for herself of a certain house and a certain marriage and, and kids and certain experiences And what she had explained was that her definition of all, of having it all, has just continued to evolve. And it went from being this world-class ballroom dancer to finding joy in family and in health and even in daily routines. So simply put, it really depends on what having it all means to you. And her definition has evolved. One of the best things that Adrienne shared, and she shared so many great things, she talked to us about her morning mantra and what her morning routine looked like. And she said that she asks herself a few questions. She says, what does my head need today? What does my heart need today? How do I want to feel at the end of the day? So what's her head need? What's her heart need? And how does she want to feel at the end of the day? And she starts her morning that way. To me, these are questions that she's asking herself to define what having it all may look like in her world today. That degree of clarity was the word I'd use. I said, it sounds to me like you just have a lot more clarity than most. You know, there's these weird habits that she described. If you go back to the interview, You'll remember she, she speaks her affirmations out loud and she's got all these different things that she does in the morning. A lot of that was just simply about clarity, in my opinion. When she's able to figure out what her mind, her head needs every day and what her heart needs every day and how she wants to feel at the end of the day, when she has that degree of clarity, she might have a good degree of what having it all really means to her. She had this emphasis on self-reflection, and she used this emphasis. It was a tool to redefine her goals, to reevaluate how she's measuring success. She had such an amazing analogy about the record player. This might've been my favorite takeaway from her. And again, there are lots of them, but she talked about this record player analogy. And she was describing that, you know, when you play a record, for those of us that are old enough to remember records, when you continue to play a certain song on a record, the groove within that record where the needle's been, you know, the needle's been scratching, right? Uh, that groove gets deeper and deeper and deeper, deeper, deeper, and you've got to actually physically move the needle out of that groove. Well, she was describing this record player analogy. She was, she was explaining that moving the needle of thoughts that are stuck on negative loops and, and, and replacing them with actionable self-care practices is something that, that she has to do and, and we all should be doing. Again, when you get stuck in your head on this story, you keep telling yourself a story, one that's not, not necessarily a positive one. It's like a needle getting stuck in a record. It gets stuck on this negative loop and you've got to replace that as soon as you see it. Adrienne would describe that she has to do something. Maybe it's stick her face in water or go outside for a walk or say affirmations or whatever it may be, but you've got to replace these thoughts, these negative thoughts, these negative loops that keep replaying, you got to replace them with actionable self-care practices or whatever it may be. In the spirit of having it all, Adrienne also talked about the importance of daily accomplishments for her. I don't know if you caught this, but she talked about how she even tracks the small wins. She jots down in her Notes app when she folds laundry or when she drinks, you know, a certain quantity of water or when she does this or does that. And the idea here is, at least I believe the idea been tracking these small wins is to build momentum, momentum to reach whatever it is she's, she's defining as having it all. Again, the key focus here is the societal expectation of having it all might be a lot different than what yours truly is about when you sit down and you truly— and you reflect on what matters, you truly reflect, reflect on what matters. So for our listeners here at No Days Off, I want to, I want to challenge you to define whatever your having it all means. But I want, I want you to define it based on personal values rather than external pressures. Think about that right now. What having it all means to you. Is it about your personal values or is it a little bit more about external pressures? Material things. My challenge for you is to reflect a little bit more, um, personally, right, as opposed to external pressures, and see how you could redefine what having it all may mean. Adrienne had some really great advice. She said you could have it all if you define your all authentically. You can have it all if you define your all authentically. I think that's a really, really, really powerful statement. So on that note, a lot to think around last interview, or I'm sorry, last episode around Adrian's interview. Hopefully you enjoyed this week here at No Days Off. I certainly loved the interview on Monday and, and having these follow-up lessons over the past few days. On that note, that's all we have for you today, the No Days Off podcast. Thank you so much for listening, and remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.
