The Resilience Mindset w. Lauren Johnson

I always say, like, mental performance, it doesn't make you invincible, makes you adaptable. It's accepting your reality regardless. It doesn't mean you have to like your reality, but then choosing your response.

Welcome back to the Yes And Podcast. I am your host still, Bunny Young, serial entrepreneur, retired stuntwoman, mother of 3 beautiful kids, and builder of a life that I don't need to escape from. I am so thrilled to have you here because this season, as you know, it is all about diving deeper with mostly incredible women. There are some men here that we're interviewing on season 2 that are all breaking barriers, building empires, and designing lives and companies their way. And that is what we are all about here at the Yes And podcast, is basically how business transforms us and life transforms us. And it's like, yes, this is the journey of business. And also entrepreneurship is the most gnarly personal development journey that I have ever been on. And that's why I think it takes a lot of psychological support. So today I have brought on Lauren Johnson. Lauren is a renowned mental performance coach who has dedicated her career to helping elite athletes, business leaders, and high performers unlock their potential by mastering their mindset. More importantly to me, because I have never read that bio out loud for Lauren, is that she is a friend, and a fellow mama. And so we are just going to get into this and all things psychology and then a little bit, uh, of other stuff too. So Lauren, welcome to the Yes And Podcast.

Oh, thank you so much for having me. I am like, oh, I've been looking forward to this for a long time.

Yeah, yeah. So like, I just want to come out of the gate with one of the things that— well, two things. First is I want to be your studio when I grow up. So if you have— if you don't follow Lauren on Instagram, she has a Wellness Wednesday. What's, what's it called on Wednesday?

Midweek Mindset.

Midweek Mindset, and I love the studio. And so we've been having this conversation since October that when I built my podcast studio in California, that I wanted it to look like your podcast studio. So am I close?

Oh, yours is even better.

Even better.

The texture on the walls is chef's kiss.

I love it. I love it. So the first thing that I wanna lead with is resilience and toughness, cuz that's not something that we need at all as business owners, right?

Yeah, nope.

No, not at all. And, and I'm, I'm gonna cue this up for you in two ways. So one is a business owner. You started working with athletes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. And so that's not a business owner.

Correct.

And an athlete doesn't have any issues, right? They get paid millions of dollars to just show up and play a game for 3 hours and that's it. They're making like $500 grand an hour. Isn't, isn't that accurate? No.

Uh, it's so funny. I started my career, my kind of big break into sports, sport and performance psychology was in baseball. And so I got to work within the New York Yankees system and I worked for them for about 4 years. And all the time when I would, if somebody knew I would work for them, they'd be like, oh, must be nice. Mm-hmm. Oh, must. And so if you're a business owner and you've had any degree of success, you may have heard this yourself. Oh, must be nice.

Yeah. Did you see my tongue? Like my tongue cheek thing that like that whole mm-hmm. Uh-huh. Yeah. How do you identify a trigger physically?

Exactly. Exactly. And it's so easy to make an assumption of what the behind the scenes looks like when all you see is what's in front of you on the field. But they are human just like the rest of us. You know, I would, I remember I had a parent ask me, so What do like the best on the Yankees deal with? Like, they must not deal with anything. They may have no— they must have no struggles. And I was like, no, no, they have the exact same struggles and the stakes are higher.

What do you mean by the stakes are higher?

Well, you're in the public light, so you play good, you play well, everybody loves you. You don't, the world hates you. And so you're on this roller coaster of acceptance with the outside world. And you have to really learn to not only be your biggest critic, but also when to deploy being your biggest fan. And the latter is often harder for high performers because we're really good at picking ourselves apart. We're really good at saying, oh, I need to improve. Most of us are really good at thinking when we hear feedback from someone we like and respect, we go, oh man, I really need to look into that and find the truth in it. And what can I do to improve it? But an area where a lot of high performers struggle with is pumping themselves up when no one else is. Like when the world around us is silent and they're not saying how great we are and how talented we are and how lucky the Yankees are to have us. Well then who is saying that? Because someone's opinion of you doesn't improve your ability to do or not to do something. Mm-hmm. And Kara Lawson said this recently in an interview and I absolutely loved it. She said, you know, at the beginning of the season, No one cared about us. We weren't even on their radar. Their opinions of us were low. Well, now we are, and their opinions of us are high. Neither matter because it is not a prerequisite for us to perform. It doesn't take away or add to our ability to perform. And so your opinions versus your outcomes are so different. And so when I look at athletes, there's so many parallels. Sure, our jobs may look different, you know, instead of being in a boardroom or making these decisions on your budgets for that year and how you're gonna manage this million dollars or Who you're gonna merge and acquire this year. Like those decisions are different than what your decisions look like on a baseball field. And are you gonna throw a slider? Are you gonna throw a curveball? The decisions are different, but how our brain shows up in high stakes moments, regardless if it's a decision around M&A or if it's a decision around a pitch, it still shows up similarly. And so the mental skills transition from both areas and they apply in both domains.

I love that. So what I'm hearing you say is that the tools are the same whether you're a New York Yankee or you are a solopreneur. What you're building with the tools is different, but the, the tools that we use for resilience, the tools that we use to overcome imposter syndrome, the tools that we use to make it through burnout, you know. I also think there's this misconception that burnout's a bad thing, and like, I, I want to kind of touch on that. We don't have to do it right now, but I wanna touch on that. It's like burnout's just feedback for the most part, but ignoring any of these symptoms, not bringing out your tools, not using the tools in your toolbox, that's where we can get into a lot of trouble. And I think that to go back to the professional athlete, there's a story that gets told that because you're a professional athlete, because you are, uh, an actor or an actress, like that your life is so good that you can't have problems, you know. And especially for an entrepreneur— and my husband's in the military and he has no entrepreneurship experience whatsoever, and I'm a third-generation entrepreneur, and so my parents know very much like what I'm going through. And my husband used to ask me to do more with the house since I was going to be home. And I remember having to have that conversation that a mental load is as much, if not sometimes more, than carrying a physical load of getting out of the house, driving, or performing in a baseball game or a, you know, professional sports venue. I don't think, in your experience, it's not the physical aspect of performing that led to a negative outcome. We've already beaten ourselves in our head most of the time.

Right. I heard this quote that I think applies so well to what you're saying. And it was, I can't remember exactly who it was, but it was a college coach and I heard it through a third party. Someone shared it with me and he said, when skill meets skill, skill is no longer enough.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

And so whether you're an entrepreneur, whether you're an athlete, whether you're a surgeon, whether you're a soldier in the military, it's like when skill meets skill, skill is no longer enough. How you manage those skills under those circumstances that are maybe unforeseen or adverse or struggles, whether they're outside externally or internally that we're having within ourselves. That's really where these things come into play. So very similar to what you said, like there's a physical load and a lot of people look at that when they look at athletes or soldiers in the military, and then there's a mental load and those things, you know, we all carry in our own different forms.

Yeah. And with my company's work with the military on post-traumatic stress, what's interesting about that is for years we've had a very reactive approach to post-traumatic stress. And what we're finding is the only way to move the needle on post-traumatic stress is a proactive approach. And it's to start it in, you know, week zero, basically with mental— we have physical first aid, but we don't have mental health first aid. And I wish that they did the same for entrepreneurs as well. I mean, if you go to a small business resource, it's like how to put together a P&L, how to, you know, file your paperwork with the SEC. But there's really no mental wellness resources. And obviously it's a big thing that my company does in the corporate space and now bringing it to entrepreneurs. I know that's something that you are so passionate about. And so I wanna go a little bit to the origin story because you said your first big break was with the Yankees. And in my head that goes right back to the story of like, oh, it must be nice that you were just scooped up off the, the street, not doing anything. Like, you obviously— what was your school path and what were your desires that led into the Yankees? And then from working with the Yankees, how did you get to where you're at now, and who is your target audience that you're working with right now?

Okay, so we'll start at the beginning. My undergrad is in kinesiology with a minor in psychology. I originally thought I was going to be a physical therapist. I thought that was like, this is the closest I can get to athletics without being the pro athlete myself.

Because you were a D1 athlete, right? We have that in common.

Yeah, I played soccer. I was decent, but I was like well below average for the women you see on TV. Like, they are like incredible.

I'm gonna psychology you right now with the taking yourself— you— I mean, being a D1 athlete, like, that's— if you look at the percentages. Yeah. And then the percentages of that that go pro. So I, I hear you though. Okay.

I knew for me, there's a certain point in your career that you either know you're being looked at for that or you're not. So I was like, you know what, how can I still stay close to this? Because I love it and I am so passionate about it and I wanna support athletes. And I started there and I got an internship and working it. And I just had this day where I just realized I don't really like touching people, which is a big part of physical therapy. That's, I feel like that's a prereq. You need to know that that's gonna happen.

So.

What I did love is I loved my conversations with my clients. And I worked with a lot of athletes that were injured. And so I just fell in love with this connection with helping them just like have a conversation or reflect or process through a conversation, like how they were feeling about being, you know, set back. And so I came to this revelation. I didn't do much about it. And then third game into my senior year, I'm playing and I, I received my fifth concussion. And I was told that it wasn't safe for me to play anymore. And it was a devastating reality. You know, when you're, when you identify so closely with something, especially like a sport, you can understand like how that transition felt. It was not easy, but I still remained a part of the team. I just had a very different role and I decided to take an elective course and I found sport psychology and had no idea what it was. It was as if someone was holding a mirror to me, and it reflected all the things back that I, I wish I would have heard, I wish I would have been told, I wish I would have known. And I kind of had this moment where I'm like, oh my gosh, who would I have been if I would have known these things? And then I thought, how many people can I help now that I do?

Mhm.

And it married the things I loved about physical therapy but without having to touch anybody, which was— so I decided to get a master's degree Got a master's degree, just absolutely loved it. And when I graduated, I had two job offers on the line. And the only catch was there was one that was gonna take about six months for me to get placed, which was very normal for this role. And so I actually really wanted that one. So I took that one, turned down the other, but I'm on cloud nine. It was like unheard of during this time that you would get two offers outta grad school. There just wasn't many available.

Yeah.

And so I'm waiting and I have my 6 months go by and I had friends that received similar roles at this very, this very same place and they're getting placed and I'm like, oh man, I'm just waiting to see where my placement is. So I shoot them an email to say, hey, I'm just curious to know like when I should be receiving my placement. And that's when I get an email back that said, we're sorry, your job is no longer available. I remember just like sitting in silence. I like didn't really know how to process it because 6 months ago I had 2 opportunities. 6 months later I have none. The first one, you know, they didn't wait 6 months to hire someone else.

Yeah.

They've already hired someone. So that was no longer available. And For whatever reason, these people— I don't even know if they were gonna tell me if I didn't reach out— seemed like, oh yeah, we've known this. It was devastating. And I just had this moment where I was like, I don't even know what to do anymore. I called everybody I knew and everybody said the same thing. They're like, Lauren, you just need experience, which is like the worst thing to hear outta grad school.

You're like, what? Yeah, right? Like I can't get a job without experience. Can't get experience without a job.

Yeah, exactly. So what do you think I'm trying to do? So I see my student loans are coming up. I need to make money somehow. So I get a job at Starbucks and this one day in the drive-through changed my entire life. So I'm sitting in the drive-through and when you're working the drive-through, it's your job to entertain the customer while their drink is being made. So I'm chatting it up with this guy and he asked me, he's like, so are you in school? Which was a fair question. Most people were, but I said, no, actually I just graduated. He's like, great. What'd you get your degree in? And Bunny Young, like here I am thinking like, finally someone who like cares. It's like taking interest. Like, yeah, usually nobody really cares what you have to say. They're just like, gimme my coffee. But like, this guy's like actually showing interest. So I'm like so excited, especially cuz I'm so proud. And so I proudly tell him like performance psychology. And he just starts laughing. And like, you know the difference between when somebody's like laughing with you and at you. And it was like very clear he's laughing at me. And you know me by now, I have no problem with that awkward conversation or question. And so I let him catch his breath and then I asked him, what's so funny? And he says, oh, huh, you got one of those degrees. You'll never use. And my— I don't even know what my face looked like. I can only imagine.

Yeah, right.

And I was in shock.

Please. I would've thrown a drink, so you're already doing better than me.

I will tell you, I am so proud I didn't, but everything inside me wanted to. And I just had to walk away. Like, I couldn't even hand him his drink. I was so upset. And you know when somebody says something to you and then it ruminates in your head nonstop? Yeah, and so it's, and it's, it's repeating and repeating and repeating, and then suddenly I'm mad because I'm mad. Like, I'm getting more and more upset, and I have this moment where I'm like, this guy doesn't even know you. Like, why are you giving so much, so much?

Because he rang a bell that already existed in your head.

Exactly. And that's the day that I learned when something like that triggers you emotionally, it's probably because there's some truth to it. And the fact is, here I am attempting to say like, I'm gonna help solve people's mindset, and I can't even do it myself. You know, you're not going to get very far if you turn around at your first sign of adversity. And here I was waiting for somebody, for another job to fall into my lap instead of finding another path. Yeah. And so that evening I Googled how to start your own consulting company. Started my own consulting company with the sole purpose of building a resume for experience.

Yeah, exactly.

After a year's time, I got recommended for the Yankee job, and I interviewed, and I got the role, and I spent 4 wonderful years getting to learn and develop and deploy what I knew athletes needed.

Yeah, I love so much about that story, but I also see— like, is it okay to share, like, where I see kind of this overlap? So I just recorded this episode yesterday around— I was working with a curriculum designer last week for Defy, and she asked me what my core stories were. You and I both do speaking, and so we have the stories that we tell on stage that, you know, are the ones we just take out of our pocket. Then there's stories like the Starbucks story that maybe you've told it on stage, but like it's so heavily impacted you in a way that's so personal that you're not really sure it's going to impact other people. And so I shared with her kind of casually that my assistant coach in my freshman year of college basically told the entire team I didn't belong there. And what I heard was I was worthless. And I basically quit on myself. I gave up on an athletic career on that night. And that is the same thing that was running through my head was, you don't belong here. You're not good enough. And then it took me 18 months. So kudos to you for coming out of that. It took me 18 months to realize, and I can sit in front of you now, 19, 20 years later and say, she's right. I didn't belong there. You were out of athletics because of an injury. I took myself out of athletics because of my mindset.

Mm-hmm.

And very similar to you, I wanted to make sure that that didn't happen for anybody else. And, and I thought, there's no reason why a woman especially should tell a young woman that she doesn't belong there. Like, there's way too much in this world already. The last thing you need as a coach is to be cutting your athletes down. But then I'm like, well, what was my role in it? Because like we just talked about, she can't ring a bell that doesn't already exist in my brain. And so I, I know who the assistant coach is. Obviously I can go back and have this conversation. And in fact, she's messaged me since that day, you know, and we will have a conversation about it eventually. She has no idea the impact that it had on me. And I could never explain that, but it would be amazing. Not that you need that closure, but it would be amazing to look at that guy who was driving through the Starbucks.

Oh, I would hug him.

And just be like, thank you. Yeah, it's so interesting to be so mad at somebody and outsource so much of your power to somebody. And I don't know that I was necessarily mad at her, but I did blame her, you know. I felt like that wasn't her place. Her job was to build me up, and I feel like she took that from me. But from now, like you said you would go hug him, now I'm just so grateful because It's a core story that I shared with the curriculum designer and the curriculum designer's like, that's why you do what you do, is you wanna make sure that no one else gives up on themselves when it gets hard.

Mm-hmm.

And I've had this massive transition in my mind to be like, I'm going from hiding behind the value as a business coach. I think you've done this, at least from what we've talked about in the past 8 months. My value is only as a business coach and what I can help you to accomplish in your business. My value is as this transformational coach for business owners. And you're doing performance coaching from athletes for athletes, and now it's expanded so far beyond the athletes. So take us to that place. Yeah.

First, I just wanna share, like, I thank you for sharing your core story because there is a lot of synergy there. I see why that came up for you. Yeah.

I did not throw a coffee at her. That's good either. Okay. But like I said, my reaction in that moment was not anger. Yeah. It was kind of like this external confirmation of what was already in my head. Yeah. And so I didn't get angry at her. I just gave up. Yeah.

Well, and what a gift. I mean, that even though, you know, we can't control the things outside of us, I always say like mental performance is, it doesn't make you invincible, it makes you adaptable. And it's accepting your reality regardless. It doesn't mean you have to like your reality, but then choosing your response. And so accepting like what's in front of you and then going, what am I gonna do with this? What am I gonna do about it? How am I gonna move forward? So I just think that both situations give really, really good examples of how it may not be fair, it may not be right. However, you still have a choice in the matter.

Exactly.

Oh, I love that. Well, I think it's evolved in so many ways. I think because I started to realize we all have the same brain systems and structures and sure, we have different experiences and different things that can shape how we interpret the world around us. However, when it comes to performance and performance psychology, it's how our brain shows up in these moments of high performance. And so it actually happened quite organically, this not switch but inclusion of business. I was with the Yankees and my first client reached out to me via LinkedIn and he's like, hey, like, could you come talk to my team? And I was nervous. I'm like, how is this going to translate? You know, I had no idea. And then I did it and I'm still working with the same company 5 years later. And I think the exciting thing about that is that, again, maybe we're speaking a different language, right? We're not speaking the language of hitter or pitcher or outfielder or catcher. We're speaking the language of executive, of leader, of middle manager. And those languages are different, circumstances are different, situations are different. However, how these principles get applied are quite similar. There might be some small nuances and things that are different, Obviously that happens just person to person anyway. But I was like, wow, it's actually no different. They're corporate athletes. And so that's when I started to go, oh, I see the connection. And I went from working 80% sports to 20% business to now I'm 80% business and 20% sports. I love working with business leaders and owners and teams. I think maybe because this is not as widely accepted and maybe not as popular as is in sports. And so The people I get to work with often feel it's such a competitive advantage for them, and it actually has nothing to do with their competition and everything to do with them.

Yeah.

And they realize when their focus is on them, you know, it's not like we never look outside, but we're not considering that when we're making our decisions. That's really where their power lies. And we've seen a lot of success. I absolutely love that.

I love how you light up too in sharing about this. And I wanna take a moment to come back to the personal side of things because obviously a lot's happened in the last 5 years for you personally. And I've watched you become more and more of you and kind of spreading your wings. And I wanna know the big question, what is your definition of Yes. And, and I wanna know how you've applied that to the work that you do and your life in order to have that work-life alignment.

Yes. And to me is a model of flexibility. I think where it came into play for me was whether it's handed to us, whether it's something that we adopt along the way, it's like these belief systems that this is how it needs to be done. And I used to believe, I legitimately thought when I signed on with the Yankees, this is my forever career. And little did I know that year 2 in, there was something more that I desired. And what I've learned is with this kind of yes and, what it means to me is that yes, whatever your beliefs are now, they may be true today.

Yeah.

And it doesn't mean there isn't a possibility for that to shift and evolve tomorrow. And so what I've learned is that my life is kind of unfolding in these chapters, and what worked when I was 26, 27, working in pro sports, having 2 days off a month, Diving into work so heavily, that worked then.

Yeah.

Now, starting a family with my husband doesn't work now. And so what allows me to do what I do and have this other life that I really want, what it's done is it's forced me to challenge my assumptions.

Yeah.

Challenge my belief systems and honestly take a little bit of risk. And that's been a lot of fun.

You brought something up that I really wanna highlight, especially for female business leaders. And there's a lot of coaches also that listen to this podcast. There's so many times where it feels like intuitively you bet on yourself, which I, I know LoJo, I don't have to hold this up for you. Most people aren't born with that.

Yeah.

I mean, you just said risk taking, and this was something that the mirror had to be held for me too, because like I said, I'm a third generation entrepreneur. So inherently what was modeled for me was you are the safest bet. And that helped me a lot in modeling. That helped me a lot in athletics. That helped me a lot in academics. That helped me a lot in business. And I also, from a lot of the people that I coach and a lot of the business owners that I coach that didn't grow up with an entrepreneurial household, it's counterintuitive. To what makes you safe. I don't know if your parents were entrepreneurs or not, but coming into this, how do you develop a mindset where you are mentally resilient enough to take the risks and bet on yourself and trust yourself to be able to make those decisions? And if you wanna take us through a personal journey with that or a client journey with that, that would be awesome.

The way I'm able to make the risk decisions— now, I've always had a very deep internal belief in myself. Even if I have to go back to Starbucks, even if I've never felt too proud to do the work I gotta do to get by.

Yeah.

And so I'm always like, worst case scenario, I can do that. But the thing that often helps me take that step when I'm feeling uncertain is— it may sound morbid, but I always think about the end of life.

Yeah.

Because I think so often we make decisions in our current state, but if you think about it from your future state and you think about, it's the end of my life, if I look back, what do I want it to look like? What do I wish I would've done? What would I be regretful if I didn't? Mm-hmm. And I sit down and I really sit with that and I know for me, I would regret not trying. I wouldn't regret failing. I'm like, I am wildly resourceful and I have a wonderful network. I have no problem making connections. Like, I can do this. Like, I really believe I can. Yeah. And I know that underlying belief is, is not always easy to come by, but I like to think that my feelings and actions don't always have to match to coexist. And I, I also know that my feelings about my being confident, my belief in myself often precede my actions. And so knowing that, I take the leap. And I'm telling you right now, there's not a risk I've taken that I have not been glad I have.

Yeah. I mean, what I'm hearing is that you always receive the ROI.

Correct.

So this is the part where you can throw the Starbucks drink at me. Tell me why you're not that special. Because my work is making sure that the people that are listening to this right now, the 80%, if not more of the listeners, just heard, well, that's true for Lauren. Mm-hmm. That's because she has X, Y, and Z. That's because she has this resiliency. That's not me. And, and so what I want you to know as the listener and what Lauren, I want you to go into is you're not that special. Yep.

You're 100% right. I'll tell you this quick story that I think can help ground it. I was young and it was a dad of another girl on our soccer team and I was in rec soccer and I was so hard on myself even at a young age. And I remember he used to come up to me and try and give me like a pep talk to cheer me up. And he'd always be like, Lauren, you just gotta believe. And I'm like, thanks, Dan. I wish I would've thought of that myself.

Yeah.

I just gotta believe. I don't like—

that's like when my husband says, just don't stress. Yeah.

Or when people tell you to like, don't worry, like don't, don't freak out. Don't worry. You're just like, oh my God.

Oh, okay. Oh wow.

I didn't think of that. Thank you. So I had this moment where I was just like, what is belief? It feels like this thing that's floating up in the air. How do we create tangibility?

Yes.

And I created a belief formula and I'll share it with you, but there's a story that it applied to that I think is really important. I was at the Yankees and I'm working with one of our minor league teams and I'm in the dugout and I'm just chatting it up with the player next to me. Half the time we're not talking anything about the performance. It's just, how's your mom? How's your family? Did you finally propose to your girlfriend? You know, like those kind of conversations. And I'm chatting it up with this player and he's giving me like one-word answers. And I'll preface this with, I recognize I am not for everyone, so I'm totally okay if he's like, I want nothing to do with her. Yeah. But the thing that was odd to me is I'd never had this type of interaction with him before. So I started, number one, I always put it on me first. Maybe I haven't developed the relationship enough. So I'm like, you know what, this weekend I'm going to make it a point to, you know, get to know him better and develop more conversation. No matter what I did, he did not want to talk to me. It was like one-word answers. And so then I started to get a little worried. I'm like, man, have I said something that I'm just not aware of that maybe offended him and caused him to have this response with me? So I decided I'm just gonna confront it. And one day I'm going to the batting cages and I'm going there early, not expecting to see him or anyone. And I kid you not, it is just him warming up in the batting cages. And I'm like, this pro— this guy is probably like, this lady will not leave me alone. So I finally go up to him, I'm like, hey, I have a question for you. And he's like, what do you got? I said, I wanna preface this with, you could just not wanna talk to me and I will tell you, you will not hurt my feelings if that's the case. I just want to make sure that— have I said something to offend you in any way? I said, you know, you're just giving me one-word answers, and I just want to make sure that it— you know, am I reading this right? Am I totally off?

Yeah.

He's like shocked. He's like, what? No, like not at all. And I'm like, care to explain? And he's like, I'm just not good at speaking.

Okay.

And I said I was like, huh, do you care to explain a little further?

Like, why do you care to speak?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. He's like, I hate you. But then he's like, he tells me I'm not very good at speaking, so I just try to like give like very short answers to end conversations quickly. And I said, okay. I said, well, we're about to play a game, so that was not the time to dive into it. So I was like, hey, do you mind if we explore this after the game if you're comfortable? And he's like, yeah, yeah, no problem. So Game ends, he played well. He comes in my office and we had a conversation that led to this question. And I said, do you remember the first time anyone told you you weren't good at speaking or the first time you ever believed you weren't good? And it took him a while. And then out of nowhere, he goes, it was in elementary school. He said, I had a really bad stutter. And so whenever my teacher would ask me to speak aloud, I would be made fun of. And he said, to the point where one day my teacher came up to me and said, I'm sorry, sweetie, you're just not very good at speaking. And my heart sunk in that moment. It's gonna get me emotional. I get emotional thinking about this. I'm looking at this adult, but I see this child.

Yeah.

And he was handed this belief. And that's still, is still carrying it.

Mm-hmm.

And I asked him, do you want to carry that around? Like, is that who you wanna be?

Yeah.

And he's like, no, Lauren, it's exhausting. This is not who I wanna be at all. Yeah. And I said, okay, let me explain this to you. Your belief equals your identity plus actions. So if your identity, if you believe your identity to be, I am not good at speaking, Every time you act in support of it, it solidifies this belief.

Yeah.

And so every time you speak with one word, you try to shut down conversations like that, you're solidifying this belief. Yeah. The good news is we can change this formula. So let's interchange identity and belief. Your identity equals your belief plus action. So let's look at identity. Is it— who is it that you want to be? And he's like, I want to be the kind of person who can raise their hand in, in your sessions, Lauren. He goes, I have important things to say. I want to be the kind I'm the kind of person that can go up to the coach and ask questions and feedback. And I was like, amazing. Well, the bad news is you can't just declare this and then just go eat a sandwich. We gotta like do something about it. So my question to you is, what actions do you have to take that can support this new identity? And so we came up with a bunch of them and nobody knew this to this day. No one knows that we did this at the Yankees. Every day before I would have a meeting with them, He would come to my office, we would discuss the questions I was gonna ask and prep his answer. And so at the end of my meetings, as soon as I'd ask a question, his arm would go up and it'd give him the opportunity to show up as who he wanted to be. Yeah.

To exercise the behavior from that belief. To exercise the action from that belief.

Yes. And so then it got to the point where he no longer showed up in my office.

Yeah. Because that's his identity now.

He became that person. It's a long way of answering your question, but it comes to the idea of we all have these beliefs that we either pick up, were given to us, were told. And so the question is, who do you want to become? Then the second question is, and in what ways do we have to act, or what actions do we have to take? Yeah, that can support that new belief. And that is both an external action and potentially internal as well. Absolutely. As we put in those reps, your mind starts to believe it. Yeah. And so I, we are all so similar. I have limiting beliefs myself that I've had to work through, that I've had to act regardless of how I felt. My feelings and actions did not match. Yeah. But I knew that with this action, my feelings would begin to catch up. And so I don't take counsel from my feelings when I act. And it is an exercise. It is something that you have to repeat. It is a muscle. But it's one that we can all develop. And that is why I'm not special. Mm.

And that's also why you are, right? Like, oh, we could just keep going in this conversation. And I think something that you and I discussed when we were talking about kind of the work and the plans that you have with your life is this iceberg. And this is what I use with clients where it's on the top of the iceberg. It's one of the reasons I don't do therapy anymore is cuz I feel like it's just top of the iceberg.

Mm-hmm.

Where it's the things you're talking about, feelings. Behaviors, actions, thoughts. And then below the iceberg is where that magic happens. And that's where you're talking about where it's belief, identity, subconscious, what's stored in our body, right? The unconscious. And so it is shifting that and asking yourself, am I working on top of the iceberg, or am I operating on top of the iceberg, or am I working on really the root of this? And this is such a great conversation, and I could go hours with you. Um, and I also am like, we need to have coffee too and just like catch up on all the stuff. But I don't wanna leave people without being able to connect with you. You know, the Midweek Mindsets, I definitely recommend connecting with LoJo on Instagram around that. So how can people best connect with you?

The best way, because turns out Lauren Johnson is a wildly popular name in this world. So the best way to find me is to go to my website. All my social medias are connected to that. That's where you can sign up for my newsletter. It's laurenjohnsonandco.com. That's the best way. And then yeah, I'd love to hear from all of you. Yes.

And everything's gonna be below in the show notes to connect with Lauren. And I am so grateful for you being here. Thank you so much for taking some time to just pour your love and your work and your gifts into the Yes. And Podcast community.

Oh, well, thank you for having me. Like I said, you are such a special light, speaking of, and you have such a way of getting to the core of people. And so I just feel really lucky to know you and to be a part of this podcast.

I love you so much. So, all right, well, thank you guys for joining us as we're having this love session at the end of our podcast. We're gonna continue this offline. We may share some of it on Instagram, so make sure you go over there and follow us. And I wanna thank you for listening. I wanna thank you for tuning in. I wanna thank you for doing this work because you're making the world a better place.. And like we discussed, you know, you're incredibly special and all of these tools and the stories that you heard is not because we are special, it's because we're willing to do the work. And so if you found this show in particular helpful, please hit that follow and subscribe button. It does wonders for the show. It's so important to me that this show finds who they're supposed to, who the episode's for organically. And so by sharing it with somebody and letting 'em know that you were thinking about them, that means the world to me. I love hearing from you guys. On Instagram, you can always DM me @thebunnyyoung, or you can send us an email with any ideas for a guest, episode ideas, takeaways, just to say hi at hello@thebunnyyoung.com. I'd love to hear from you. And until the next episode, I'm Bunny Young. Continue having your yes and life.