#20: Reclaiming & Reframing Your Story with Flip Flippen

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When you join me here, we are going to chase down our goals, overcome.

Adversity and set you up for a better tomorrow. Come on this journey with me. Hi and welcome back to Creating Confidence. I'm so grateful that you are here with me. So today is actually I'm recording this the day before you're hearing it, which I typically don't do. However, I have a flight to Los Angeles today and I am booked back to back when I get there. And my weekend was a little crazy getting everything organized and I took my son to the Patriots game this weekend and just trying to get my house together because things have been a little chaotic. So it's very early. My new routine with my son is we're up at 6am, I make him breakfast, I've got everything ready for him the night before. This house is on lockdown at 8pm and I get, you know, his clothes out or everything is just so organized. It's insane, a little crazy. And I drop him off at the bus at 6:45 in the morning, which means we leave our house at 6:25 and we're starting our routine an hour earlier than we've been doing for essentially the rest of his life. It's so crazy. What a big difference. Missing that one hour of sleep is because I realized we're not going to bed an hour earlier because I have a 12 year old and he does not want to go to bed before 9:30. And it really takes a toll on your body. Holy cow. When you start missing a little bit of sleep. My son has had this ongoing cough now for more than a week. I just feel tired all the time and I had a talk with him yesterday that we have got to go to bed earlier because I can't be dragging through life like this. It's just crazy to just feel lethargic or have to have, you know, three cups of coffee to reboot. So that's my mantra this week and don't ask how I'm going to pull this one off as I fly to Los Angeles and change time zones and then have back to back interviews at Podcast one when I get there. So we'll see. Hopefully I can make this happen. It's definitely going to be a work in progress, but sleep is definitely crucial in how we feel and I'm hoping you're getting enough. I'm definitely taking steps so that I can. Another reason I lost sleep this week was I had a speech that I gave in Philadelphia. And instead of usually what I'll do is I will fly out the night before. And I, I found that when I do that, sometimes it's just, it's not worth missing a whole extra day. You know, you have to leave your home a day earlier. You sleep in some hotel that you've never stayed at before. What if the hotel isn't great? Then I'm not going to get a great night's sleep. And you know, there's all these domino effect things that I've just decided that if it's possible, I'd rather just fly out really early in the morning and make that work. So that was, you know, try it a new way this time and see how it goes. So I was up at 4am and getting ready, flew out to Philly on the 6am flight, got there and went right to the venue and went right through a walkthrough and I was in my sweatpants and, and it was super hot out there and it just was kind of crazy running in there. And I just said, listen, I need a hotel room to go do my hair, you know, get myself prepared. I was super hot and sweaty and I was just not in a great mood, I was so tired. So they put me in a hotel room, I was getting ready and all of a sudden, and I say this in the nicest way, my phone started blowing up. And the reason why is I spent know, more than a decade working in Philadelphia from my old radio career. And I know a lot of people, so a lot of people had showed up to support me and it was so sweet. However, when you're stressed out, tired, trying to get ready, trying to make yourself look good and you want to do a bang up job, when you get up to speak, you need to get into the right mindset, right? And I know how to do that. This is not my first rodeo, people, right? So, so I know I need to make myself look good, you know, wear my great colors and feel my best, do my makeup, do my hair and really feel on point and rock out to my theme song. My playlist that I always play before I go to speak. That's how I get in my, you know, my right zone. Everyone has different routines, but for me this really works. So I was in the hotel room getting in my zone. And I have to tell you, when you're in different hotel rooms, there's an effect there too, right? Right now I'm flying to Los Angeles. I always stay at the same place, so that's easier for me to get in the zone, I know the routine, I know the people. That gives me a real level of comfort. But when you go to different places and you don't know the hotel, you don't know the people, it can be a little more challenging. So I look down, I see my phone blowing up. Heather, where are you? You're supposed to be out here. Because the hour before my speech, they had a networking quote, unquote, networking working hour. So people wanted me out there. Now, the old me, back when I was in radio and working for an evil villain, I would have apologized and forced myself out there. But these days, heck, no, I put myself first. And I was exhausted and not feeling it, and I just didn't respond. I took my phone, I put it on the charger, and I put it in the other room. The. The, you know, the bed portion of the hotel room. I went into the bathroom to do my makeup, and I just cranked up my music and ignored it. And it was probably the people that are supporting me or are listening to this, like, oh, Heather, that's really nice. Here's the thing. If you're going to do something, you're going to do your job, you want to do it the best that you can. You've got to put yourself first, you've got to get focused, and you need to just tune out that noise, even when the noise is good noise, right? Because it was. It's these people I love that support me, and I'm grateful for them. But I was really proud of myself that I was very aware of how I would have handled that in the past and how I handle it differently this week. So I end up getting another text right when I was about to go out, because now it's 15 minutes before I'm going to go on to speak. And the last note I saw was something like, hey, we're still waiting for you. You know, waiting. Or something like that. And I just wrote back, thank you. I'm definitely worth the wait. And I just laughed in my own mind that I love this idea of not apologizing, instead being grateful for the people that support you, encourage you, and thanking them for their patience. However, knowing your own value, and I do know I'm worth the wait, and that act of doing that, sending that message, that put me in my zone. And I started cracking up, laughing to myself. And yes, I'm grateful my peeps came to support me, but. But I'm also grateful. I know what I need. And I got in a great mindset. I packed up my bag, I wheeled out of that hotel room, I went out there, I did some pictures, and then I got on stage and I crushed it. And I'll tell you, the more you do something right, the more practice you get, the less you have to prepare, the more you can just be you. And that's really what I've been doing now when I speak. And I. I definitely see it so much better. And one of my old employees that had worked for me for 14 years, he see me speak countless times in the radio industry. He came up to me after and he said, holy cow, that was the best speech I've ever seen. Heather, you just changed my life. And I said, why do you think it's different than the 90 other times you see me speak? And he said, I don't know, it's just. It was amazing. And I think for me, that was eye opening because, you know, you know, you're good at certain things. I know I'm a good speaker. However, the one thing that's really different, one, actually, there's a couple things. One is my confidence is much higher now. I know I'm that good. I remember being in radio thinking, oh, gosh, I'm nervous. I hope I'm gonna do okay. I was doubting myself, wondering what other people around me. I had negative people around me wondering what they would think and trying to make them happy. Now I show up as me. I shine my light as bright as I can, and I know I'm gonna be proud of me because I took the stage, I took the. Put myself out there. That's a really big difference. So I think that's a big part of it. And the other part is I'm speaking from my heart about my passions instead of speaking on a topic somebody else wants me to speak about. So speaking your truth is critical in being your best version of yourself. So the speech was great. Killed it. Here's some of the feedback I got from people. Well, one thing that was really cool, I spoke about how I grew up poor and how it. One point in my childhood, you know, we had to use food stamps and how I was really embarrassed for a long time to share that with people, but now I just own that. That's part of my history, that's part of my past. It doesn't define who I am, certainly doesn't make me a bad person, but I'm really proud of me now that I can talk about it, where even just three years ago, the first time I ever spoke about it, I was at a charity luncheon three years ago, and it almost brought me to tears sharing it. Well, what was so cool is I did a book signing right after my speech and a woman came up to me and told me that she had been homeless. And she's never told anyone that. And it was a really big moment for her to share that with me. That almost moved me to tears. I was so grateful that I had shared that. So, you know, my message to you on this is when you shine a light on shame, whatever that issue is, it loses power over you. And I was so proud that I shared something that I used to be ashamed of so that now, in turn, another person could share their shameful, quote, unquote, shameful moment with me. And that issue of her being homeless at one point, it just dissipated. It disappeared. There was no more power and that shame disappeared. So if you are feeling ashamed of something, definitely the answer is to shine a light on it. Some of the other feedback that I got, the takeaways from my speech were, fire your villains, whoever they are, Evaluate your life right now. It's time to do it right now. It's your call to action. And whoever those negative people are in your life, fire them. If you can't fire them. Create boundaries and never dim your light for anyone. When you do that, all you are doing is creating a watered down version of you. And you are not put on this earth to be watered down or to be a lesser version of someone. Be the version of you. Show up as you, because the world needs you. And whatever your unique value is, bring it, show, shine it and rock it and watch the good things happen. Get rid of those negative people and watch your life start taking off. So one guy came up to me after and he said, well, it sounds like things are so great for you, but I mean, are you really happy? And I thought that was an interesting question. And here's why. I don't want anyone to confuse. You know, you can see things from the outside and maybe people say, oh, you know, Heather has a book and Heather has this podcast and she's traveling around, rah, rah, rah, you know, whatever. But here's the thing. Yes, my life is great. I love my life and I'm really proud of what I've created. However, it is not easy. As I'm sitting here recording this podcast, I'm going to disconnect from you. I'm going to jump on a flight, I'm going to read a whole nother book, because that's all I do these days, is read Books for my interviews. I'm going to land, check into hotel, change my clothes, head over to podcast one, bang out a bunch of interviews back to back. You know, go to bed, wake up, do the same thing in the morning, jump in a car, head to San Diego for another interview. You know, it's back to back to back, and it's intense because I'm really trying to maximize my time and it's not easy. Meaning I don't have this thing on lock yet. I guess that's my point. I don't know what it seems like on the outside looking in, but I'm still a rookie podcast host. My podcast just launched in May. There are so many amazing guests I want to get that I have not gotten. There are so many. You know, I'm trying to get Sarah Blakely on my show alone. And, you know, I'm back and forth, forth with her assistant. I'm trying to get on Gary Vee show, you heard me pitch him on my podcast. I'm back and forth with his assistant, trying to figure things out, trying to, trying to get people to pay attention and agree to things is not easy when, when everyone's getting pulled a million different directions. Keeping things prioritized for myself, yes, I need to work on who my next podcast guest is, but I also need to work on getting me on more podcasts. I also need to work on my TED Talk, which is coming in just a few weeks. I also need to work on my next speaking engagement and keeping that pipeline full. There's so many different things to work on and learn about. So when this man asked me if I was happy, yes, I'm happy. However, my challenges are really different now than they used to be, and it's not easy. Right. So when you're. You go to work for yourself and you're a rookie at it, you're an entrepreneur, and, you know, there's a lot of confusion and trying to figure out that right roadmap and is it being with a speaker bureau, is that the right way? Or should I just be booking my own speeches and lean in 100% to that? You know, is the TED Talk doing that going to bolster my book sales? I don't know. I don't have the answers to any of these things. All I know is I just need to keep going and you need to keep going. Have that big picture vision of where you want to go and keep taking action every single day against it. Yes, some days we will make wrong moves. I do it all the time. I get frustrated I wasted time, but I pick myself back up and I say, okay, here's a pivot moment. We're going to take a new direction. I'm still going to achieve this goal. I'm just going to go about it a different way. Keep focusing on the solutions. You will find them just as I am. And I am trying my best to really appreciate that part of the journey, even though it's hard. Because in the past my journey was crystal clear and well lit and these days it's confusing and new and it's a lot of growth. That's how I'll describe that. It's a lot of growing. And that's pretty exciting because for a long time I did not grow. So today I can't wait for you to meet my guest. This is is probably my favorite interview yet. Flip Flipping is unbelievable. Blew me away. I researched him a ton before he came on the show and I just had this amazing connection with him. I literally, I literally cried when he and I got off the show portion recording. He just, his message touches me, his story touches me. His book is amazing. 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So I am overwhelmed and completely excited to introduce my guest to you. We are so lucky to be sitting here right now with Flip Flippen. He's a New York Times best selling author, a serial social entrepreneur, philanthropist, and an internationally respected speaker and thought leader. He's founded numerous successful companies including one of the largest educator training companies in North America. He's worked with many of the most prominent leaders in the world. From his early career working with kids in gangs to later working in boardrooms and classrooms, Flip has dedicated himself to helping people write a new story. Flip, thank you so much for being here with me today.

Great Heather, it's good to talk to you. Such a treat to be with you.

Oh my gosh. Great to talk to you. I have immersed myself in your work in the past couple of days and as I mentioned to you, I thought of myself as a student of psychology, a student of life. However, somehow I was not privy to the knowledge that you have brought forward with your work, your work with children, your work that you share in your books, even your new book which is out, your third story which I just read. So it's really important to me that we share what I've learned in the past 48 hours and, and what you've created in your lifetime with our audience today. Because for me, this is truly life changing what you're doing.

Hey, thanks. It's really nice of you to say that. We've had a lot of fun.

You make it sound so simple. Oh hey, thanks. No big thing over here. No big thing. So I flip, if you don't mind, if you could start a little bit because to me it really touches my heart and I know it's going to touch everybody's heart. If you can share a little bit about the work that you've done with children and capturing kids hearts to kind of give an overview on where this all began.

Oh, that's great. I mean Heather, thanks for asking that. You know, so I got out of graduate school, just a real quick deal, but I got out of graduate school and I went to work, built a non profit free outpatient clinic and you know, like most guys that are shrinks, they hang their shingle out, nobody shows up So I had time and one of the district judges said, would you go to the jail and start seeing some guys? And of course it was a nonprofit, so I was thrilled to get that started. And I ended up working with a lot of gang kids and then got into gang work really, really heavily. And of course, the gang kids, one of their. And these are not all kids either, obviously a lot of adults, but a lot of the gang kids, though, I mean, the way they make money is they sell drugs. And so the buyers are usually our kids, middle class and upper class kids. And so you ended up working with a lot of families and that sort of thing. And just through that work, you just learn so much. I mean, you learn from kids, you learn from your patients, and if you pay attention, you learn a great deal. And I certainly did. And then after about 16 years of that, I also built a boys ranch, a 500 acre residential treatment center for kids that were, were high at risk kids. And that did really, really well. And then the governor's office called and said, fwhip, can you come and talk to us and put this in public school? And so, as you know, in the first chapter in the book, I quote, left the nonprofit. Interesting story in itself. So anyway, we started our own company, and now we're the largest educator training company in North America and do all this other work and started other companies and. But, you know, working with those gang kids, those street kids, was just an eye opening experience for me. And that's really part of the foundation of the content of the book. Because you have to learn how to write a story.

You actually include a story not of you working with a gang member, but a woman who had just gotten back into teaching. She was new to the program, your program, and started working with one of her students who was really high up in the gang and very much a troublemaker in school. And she started addressing him in a very kind and thoughtful manner. And over that year, she takes us through that journey with him. And the transformation that when you treat people with kindness and dignity and start instilling in them their potential and believing in them and rewriting and reframing those stories and the dramatic impact one person can have on someone is amazing.

Yeah, yeah, it really is. You know, Heather, if you just talk for just a minute about just some simple neuroscience. Don't let me bog it down here, but you know, kids, people, adults, all of us, if we go through high stress levels for four to six months, it begins to have a direct impact, you know, on our amygdala which is this freeze, flight, or fight part of our brain, and it shrinks our memory centers. And so you have kids, people that will engage. You see them all the time, that they come out of high stress environments and they're anxious and they don't relate to you well. And so when you see a kid coming into a classroom and he comes out of a high stress environment, he's on threat alert, he's on a high threat status all the time. And so how do you change that? And people are like, well, you know, I'm kind of halfway afraid of him too. And. But that's really not true. Really, what you're trying to do is you're trying to engage that kid so that they know that they're safe. But that's true for us as well. I mean, think about how we started even before the podcast. You come on, you're happy, you're smiling, you're relaxed, you're comfortable, and of course, what does that do to me? And I cannot help that. Heather, you have that effect on me simply by the way you engage me, and it's really quite beautiful. And I actually have that same effect because I deeply care about people. And so when you put that ingredient into stressful environments, it does create a sense of calm and peace and trust and safety. It's a cool thing.

You're using children as example. However, I'd like to shift it for a second to myself because my audience knows my story. They know that I was fired. You know, I was in a really toxic high stress work environment longer than four to six months. For a few years. I was losing my hair, I threw my back out. I mean, there was all the signs of the universe telling me, get out of this. However, I was telling myself a story, which I'm aware of it now because of you. I was telling myself a story. I had to be there. I had to be there because I had recruited the team that worked for me. I had to be there because it was irresponsible if I quit and didn't know how I'd provide for my son. I had to be there because I had made promises and signed contracts. I mean, it's all the same reasoning, like why you didn't go to Harvard. Right? It's the same.

Hey, thanks. Thanks for pointing that out.

I like that story, though. It's the same BS excuses that we're telling ourselves over and over again, and then to try to unwind once you do get out of it and feel safe. I mean, I had myself under a Weighted blanket for days, just trying to take the anxiety down. It's not easy when you're in those throes. So what are some of the things people can do when they're in that high intensity scared moment? How do you calm yourself down?

Well, so you're talking about post event. Let's talk if we can. Let's just start in that pre event because you said something that if, and I know because of our relationship, we can do this. But let's just make this really blunt. You weren't telling yourself a story, you were lying to yourself. I mean, you were flat lying to yourself. Heather, you were saying, this is okay, I'm doing good here. I have to provide for my son. There is no alternative. I won't find a job this good. Who's going to hire me? I'll have to move. It's going to change my life. I'll lose my house. All of these things, these, these are the things we tell ourselves. And in the book, you know, as we talk about it, I mean you tell yourself these stories but the bulk of those things are absolutely not true. But they come out of all of our fears, they come out of our past, they come out of things other people have told us. It could be well intentioned friends. So that's the first thing you. And I'm saying this respectfully because it relates to me, it relates to so many others. If things had not dramatically changed for you, that had nothing to do with your decision, you would have stayed in that sick situation for a much longer period of time. So this bad event that happened to you, you and I actually are sitting here X amount of time later and we're actually celebrating this horrific event. And so now to post event, it is like somebody threw a blanket over you and then they poured water on it and then they put a plastic bag over you. In the whole process, you're suffocating, you can't see your way out, you're drowning. Your anxieties are through the roof. I mean, that's what happens when something happens to you, when somebody does something to you. There was an easier way for you, by the way. You and I both could have chosen to walk away from it. We could have both sat down and said, you know what, the things I'm telling myself are not true and walked away from it into an entirely different world, which obviously you did. It just wasn't of your initial choosing.

That's really what your third story, your new book is about is walking through the steps to actually so that you don't have to wait to get fired so that you don't have to have that crisis moment to rewrite the story now and today and build that. That new story so you can make new and better choices.

Yeah. And, you know, it's interesting, Heather, that you and I sit here enjoying this topic today. But, you know, there's worse things. I mean, we talk about historically, you getting fired, and we think, golly, that was horrible. I can tell you something that is far, far more horrible than that. You could have stayed there the rest of your life.

You are right.

And you would have lost your entire destiny. You would have lost your future. You would have lost these amazing dreams that you're getting to live right now. And so that, to me, would have been the tragedy, getting fired. Meh. You know, you can deal with that. I just don't want you to lose your life.

Absolutely.

But now that I'm starting to understand and I'm hopeful, you can share with us the idea of that first story and how that first story helps to develop that second story and how I ended up sitting in a job, I was unhappy and not living to my potential, telling myself lies and living in fear. Can you explain? Because I believe that I'm not the only one that didn't know about this. What is that first story?

You know, that first story is interesting. I mean, we all have one. You know, if I said, so, Heather, tell me about you. You know, where did you come from? And you're going to start out like everybody does. I've asked that question to thousands of people all over the world. And they'll say, oh, you know, I was born in Jakarta, Indonesia. I grew up here. These were my parents. I went to school here. I had these friends. I did these things. I was in these sports, or I was not in these activities. And they tell their stories, you know. Well, the problem with that story is it certainly is the early part of their life, but they didn't write that story. They did not write that story. There's not one part of that story that they wrote. And even if I asked you and said, heather, what sports did you do and what athletics were you in? What clubs did you participate in? To a great extent, you didn't even do that because people encouraged you to do it. They said, oh, gosh, you ought to try out for, or we think you'd be good at. And. And so there were people already early beginning to write scripts for you that you were beginning to take on as though they were really your own scripts and partially they probably were your scripts. You probably did get great joy from doing many of those things. But those opportunities, those exposures, those were afforded to you by other people. You get into that second story where you begin to tell yourself things to make yourself okay. And, you know, I mean, I'm sitting here looking at you, and I'm thinking, golly, you know, I know so many kids and the boys that I grew up with in high school, they would have been saying, oh, yeah, I'm thinking about asking Heather out. You know, but they don't ask Heather out. They'll say, oh, I'm thinking about doing so and so, and they won't do it. Or, well, you know, I wanted to play sports. Sports, but I couldn't pass my physical. Or, you know, I thought about going to college here, but it was too far away. Or, you know, we all. We tell ourselves these stories because we need to be okay where we are, like we are. We don't want to fail. We don't want to do something we're ashamed of. We don't want to do something that causes other people to look at us negatively. And so in all those stories we tell ourselves in that second story, that's where most people end up living. They stay in that second story. And to get out of that, you know, you really have to have a couple of things happen. You have to have somebody, you know, like, if I had known you back then and you'd been my patient, and I'd said, okay, now let me see if I got this right. You're losing your hair, you're not sleeping at night, your diet is all messed up, your anxiety levels are high. Do a blood draw, and you find that your cortisol levels are off the. The ceiling. And, you know, kind of look at those things, and I would be saying, heather, you know, what you're doing is destroying your life. So if you have a truth teller in your life, if you have somebody that can come and say, that is so stupid. You are so full of bull. You are lying to yourself. Why are you telling yourself these stupid things? But people don't do that. They come and they commiserate with us. They say, oh, I understand. It's hard. Life is tough. I wouldn't either.

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Your chapter on confirmation bias, which was really eye opening for me to understand. Not only do we select people that will support our story that we're telling ourselves and agree with us, but we're also choosing to be drawn to news and information that's supporting us as well.

That's right.

It's very eye opening.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I tell myself a story and when it begins to sound really good to me, well, then I want to tell it to you. But I'm going to tell it to Heather because Heather likes me and Heather's my friend and Heather, she'll agree with me. You don't take your story outside. You walk it around with a few friends that are going to confirm what you're already wanting to believe. And that's confirmation bias.

So how do you get out of that and start even just becoming aware that that's what you're doing is major. But then how do you tap or who do you tap to say I need to get out of this confirmation bias circle and go to a new circle where people can help me grow and think bigger and take risks and stop BSing myself.

Yeah. Yeah. So one, you know, is to find some truth tellers. That's one of the things. But even before you would do that, Heather, I would ask you, you know, and you and I could play with this. But think back into your childhood, especially your teenage years. And so what's. Can we do that? Yeah. So think back in your teenage years and tell me of a time when you told yourself a story that just wasn't true, but you believed it at the time. So do you have an example that comes to mind?

Yeah.

So for years I told myself I wasn't smart that academics weren't my thing, because I wasn't smart. I had a brilliant older sister. And so I had been told I was the social one, I was the athlete, and I really accepted that. And I somewhat just gave up on academics in general. And even more important than that, I just gave up on the idea that I was intelligent.

Well, so now, as you look back, was that true? I mean, are you.

No, no.

I'm really smart.

And I didn't realize that until it was in my 30s.

So a little lost opportunity in there, massively. Oh, yeah. And we all do it. You know, we all do it. We all do it. I just gave the keynote at the International Olympic Congress in Fiji here a few months ago ago, and it was interesting when I was there because, you know, all of the Olympic committee comes from all over the world, and it's a big event. It's held in Fiji. Fiji is a very, very poor country. It's a very poor country. And you may not realize this, but they won the gold in rugby in the Brazilian Olympics. Okay, now tell me, tell me, how does Fiji in the Olympics, how do they win the gold in rugby against England? And just go down the list of amazing rugby teams in the world? And the fact is that they'd been telling themselves a story as a nation forever. We don't have sports facilities, we don't have great coaches, we don't have sports complexes, we don't have training opportunities, we don't have a budget. We're on an island in the middle of nowhere. We can't travel, we don't know how to play against the best. I mean, they told themselves everything under the sun. And something changed. Something changed. And of course, it was neat to get to be involved in part of that process. But then you watch and you see what happens when they have a coach that comes from Great Britain and he says, you guys, that's all you do is play rugby. You don't even have a life. All you do is play rugby. You guys live in homes that have dirt floors. You are so. And this is really true, Heather. I mean, you. I've. I've seen those homes, and many of those players have dirt floor homes. They are in abject poverty. And a coach comes and says, do you boys have any idea how amazing you are, how much you love each other, how much you love your country? And the next thing you know is they begin to come together and these lies begin to fall away from them. And. And then, you know, I'm sitting there talking with them and you're like, okay. And they took the gold. They took the gold. Now what changed? It's just what they thought. The talent was all there. And so we see this happen. We see it happen in companies, we see it happen in sports teams, we see it happen on schools, we see it happen with people. It's true. So you told yourself stories, I told myself stories. They just weren't true.

It's just, it's so eye opening. It's so important that people understand this, especially because your third story, you, new book is so simple, it is such an easy read. And I want people to know that because we live in this fast paced world where no one has time for anything. And Heather, I can't sit down and digest it. Sounds too intricate. You've really simplified this to a book that I can sit down with my son nightly and read a chapter to and he can process and anyone can process. And that first step is just becoming aware. You also give exercises at the end of each chapter with a recap. Very simple, three or four things that everyone can do to start saying, what is that first story that I was telling myself? And just thinking about it, writing it down and knowing that's not my true story is so empowering.

Yeah, it's really, it's really pretty cool. It's pretty cool.

It's mind blowing. I mean, this is the stuff that needs to be taught in schools. And I know you're working with so many, but it's not enough because I haven't heard of it yet. Right. So somehow we have to get this message out there. And I'm so incredibly passionate about it now that I'm starting to understand it. Because you always think it's just you. And I'm the one telling myself I'm not enough, I'm not smart enough. I why would I think I could do that? There's a lot of fear, you know, bad things have happened. And living in that space, so many of us remain there. I personally have been there for a long time and now coming through and breaking through to that other side and seeing just a bit of the potential that's out there really opens your mind to how much greatness anyone can have, how much purpose and passion and life anyone can have when we just decide to stop believing those initial stories.

Yeah, that's true. And you know, the trick is to challenge those thoughts. It's for you personally to look at your life and say, you know what? I really do know. We all do it. So it's not like you can Say, well, maybe I don't. No, you do. Everybody on the planet lies to themselves. And so just sitting down and saying, let me think of some times when I did that. Okay, now let me look at where I am right now. Where I am right now. I talked to a couple last week. They've been married for a good many years, and they read the book and called me, and there are people I've known, and they said, you know, fwhip, we've been lying to ourselves about our marriage. And I was like, okay, tell me what that means. And they said, we could have an amazing marriage, but we have settled for just a very mediocre tend to the children, go to work, pay the bills. That's what we're living. And we read this, and we both got so excited about what we could do with our marriage and what we could do with our children. And it just applies to every area of your life.

You know, one of the big takeaways for me, which was a visual moment when reading the book, and I shared this with you, and it's important to talk about this, is your concept of writing on others, which sounds a little weird if you don't understand the book. And I'm hoping you can explain to us. But that takeaway that someone was writing on me, and I visualize my mind, you know, almost like permanent marker on me. And then I visualize now, you know, Heather, what is it that you want to write on your son? What are you writing on your son? And now what do you want to write on him? Moving forward, can you explain. Explain that concept a little bit, please?

Yeah. Yeah, I can, Heather. And I love that you're really thinking about this as it applies to our children, too. It applies to everybody. But literally, if I could just look at your soul for a minute and just say, you know, I write on your soul every time I see you. And so if I'm seeing my children, what am I writing? And I look back at the things that got written on me, and I. I understand similar things were written on you, but, you know, I had a learning disability, and so I had people say, you know, what's wrong with you? Well, you know, when an adult says, what's wrong with you? And they don't know, and they're the adult, it must be so bad because they don't even know what it is. And you think that's such a simple statement, but why don't you try? You know, why are you not interested? Why can't you solve this? Why can't you figure this out. What's wrong with you? Why can't you be normal? I mean, why can't you be like other people? And, Heather, everything that I'm telling you are things that were told to me on a daily basis by adults in my life. And, you know, I didn't know I had a learning disability. I mean, I get out of high school fourth from the bottom of my class, and know there were not five people in my class, you know, And I get into college on probation, and I'm on and off probation every other semester. I struggle all the way through, and I'm literally believing what people have written on me. They're writing the script Flip, you're not very smart. You're an underachiever. You're a really nice kid. A lot of people like you. You're a good athlete, but golly, just not very bright. And you hear that, and you begin to believe that. And so you perform up to their expectation and you confirm the bias that they actually have about who you are. And so that process plays itself all the time well. So let's just stop and think. And, Heather, this is a fascinating concept because we want to tell our children and listen to these words. So, Heather, you're my child. Heather, you're beautiful. You're amazing. You're talented, you're gifted. Oh, you're awesome. You've got so much potential. And so listen to every word I just said to you. Now, let me tell you what's wrong with everything I just said to you. You didn't earn any of it. There's not one thing you earned. Listen to this. Beautiful, talented, capable, potential, ability. You got it. You didn't earn any of that. And so now, if you didn't earn it and people were telling you how awesome you are, then when you become a young adult, you have. And this is gonna surprise a lot of people, but you end up with an unearned, arrogant sense of entitlement. Why are you not telling me that I'm amazing? And so then we stop and say in Carol Dweck and her book mindset, many other great authors really write about this. But you really stop and start thinking, so, what should we be writing on our children? And what I want to be able to say is, you know, I'm so proud of your effort. I mean, you work so hard. I mean, you just gave that everything. You know, some of the little kids in the family the other day were working here on the ranch with me, and it was burning up hot. We were wringing wet with sweat, and they're eight years old. And I said, you know, guys, the cool thing is we don't quit. I'm so proud of you guys. We just don't quit. Look at the attitude y' all had. I'm so proud of you. Even when it's hard, you don't quit. And we still have a good attitude. And then one of them was like, well, how do we know? And I said, well, let's sing a song. We're out here clearing brush and singing a song, you know, we write on our children and being able to tell them that they're loved, that you're adored, that I cherish you, I believe in you. Those are the things we want to say to them and then celebrate the things that they do.

That's so interesting, you know, growing up and this, what you just said really stuck with me. When people say, you're so pretty, you're so pretty, you're born with whatever genetics you have, right? What's interesting is everyone, whoever you are, I don't care who you are when you age, beauty is going to erode on some level, right? The way that we had seen it when we were younger. What's weird is when you grew up, that's what people tell you. And like you said, that wasn't earned. And you start attaching some level of, you know, inner worth with that. As that changes and declines as you get older, you start feeling worse about yourself. And you're not. I'm just starting understanding this now. When you had attached things that you hadn't earned with your inner self and your inner worth, as you grow older and those things change, you start feeling worse about yourself. And that's really eye opening now for me to think. I'm gonna think twice before I say to my son, you're so handsome. You're so this. Instead, it's about, I'm proud of you. You woke up on time today. I asked you to do that, and you made a commitment, and you followed through, and I'm really proud of you. A much better conversation than, look how adorable you look right now.

Yeah, it is. It is.

Take a moment to think about it.

That's right. And the other is fine, you know, if you want to say that. But, you know, even talking about those examples with your son, when you say, you know, I'm so proud of you because you woke up on time, I want you to take that one thing. Do you know what you really did? You really saw that he's actually trustworthy. He is actually becoming Trustworthy. And so I sat in Dubai in a meeting recently with one of the largest private equity guys in the world who is probably going to prison. You can read about it. It's in the news today and yesterday. And I'll leave his name out, but he's easy to find. But in a business meeting, he literally said, flip, don't you trust me? And I looked at him and I said, that is so not the question. There's no burden on me to trust you. The question is, are you trustworthy? That's the question, and only you can answer that. And everybody kind of laughed because we know him. And he kind of smiled and he said, well, pretty much.

Oh, my gosh.

Exactly. You know, and I started laughing just like you are. And I said, ann, that's terrifying because now I've got to figure out when. And he right now has just posted the highest bond that's ever been posted in the history of Europe to be released on home arrest from jail while he awaits trial. And so when you're saying to your son, come back, Heather, draw a parallel here. This is beautiful. You know, sweetheart, you know, when you get up on time, you're just trustworthy. I trust you. Not because I just trust you, but because you are becoming trustworthy. I am so proud of that. Isn't that powerful?

Trust is so powerful. And children's ability to trust and feel safe in their parents and their environment. One of the things that reminds me of is when you. And this isn't necessarily in this book, this was in some YouTube videos that I was watching. You were sharing what happens to people when they grow up in a situation that is high stress. And I don't remember the specific word, so I'll need you to explain it. But what happens with your brain instead of the blood or energy focusing on that growth of your knowledge, instead it's these little arms going out to sense when stress could be coming. And it really changes your brain because you're not feeling safe and you're not trusting the environment around you. How does that work?

Yeah, that. Well, your explanation was about as good and non scientific as it could get, but still really accurate. You know, what happens is that when we live in high levels of stress, and so go back to, you know, when you lost your job or just pick anything. People, all of us go through high levels of stress. It could be the death of a parent, it could be a terminal illness, it could be economic, it could be all kinds of things, you know, but what it does is it impacts that freeze Flight or fight part of your brain and it makes its super hot. So when you do a functional magnetic resonance image, an fmri, you're going to find that the blood flow there is real high. So people are on high alert. So you become anxious and suspicious or people going to. You don't trust people. But what that does is it elevates your cortisol levels. What that does is impacts your hippocampus. The hippocampus is short term memory. Now I'm going to show you what this does and it shows shrinks your hippocampus, Heather. So this is what happened to you during that time. You literally, in every sense of the word, you got up and walked into another room to do something. And when you walked into that room, you forgot what you even walked in there for. You literally like, oh my gosh, I'm losing my mind. And it happens to all of us in stress situations like that. And that's a neurological response to stress. What you need to do to be able to counter measure that is to be able to spend as much time as you can with people that you feel safe with, where you are trusted and cared for and loved on. When you see children going through that kind of stress, one of the sweetest things in the world. And we've done this because, you know, we've adopted a lot of kids and raised a lot of children, but just get them to lay down on the couch next to you and just stroke their back, you know, just long slow strokes on their back because it's the vagus nerve is there, it's super relaxing. It elevates your serotonin dopamine levels, it elevates your oxytocin levels and that relaxes your amygdala and it causes you to feel safe. And so your boy, even at 12, I promise you, I promise you, Heather, right now, tonight, if you said, just come here sweetie, let's watch a movie together, and if all you did was just lightly rub his back, he's going to be in heaven.

Well, you talked about the power of touch, which is what you're explaining right now, and the weirdness that in schools, teachers aren't supposed to touch children on any level. However, that's one of the ways to actually calm them down.

Yeah, yeah, we write legislation based on the exceptions. You know, we say, well, this guy was a pervert. And so therefore nobody can ever touch children. You can't teach if you're not touching children. You know, shake their hand, pat them on the shoulder, you know, even touching Just their book on their desk gives them the sense of being touched. But, Heather, let me tell you something else that's really cool. Neurologically, you know, if I walk by you in my classroom and I just pat you you on the shoulder and just walking by, just pat you on the shoulder. Every child around you that sees me pat you on the shoulder, it actually activates the exact same spot in their brain as though they themselves were being touched without the physical stimuli. So I can actually pat you on the shoulder, and at the same time, I'm patting five or six kids sitting around you that see it, and they can't do anything to stop the neurological impact of that. And so it begins to create this sense of safety. You know, if it's just like you and I right now in this podcast, you know, I can see you and you smile at me, and I can't help the impact that has on me. I mean, you're nodding your head right now. It makes me feel comfortable. We're in agreement. There's synchronicity, and I like you to begin with. You know, it just strengthens all of that.

But flip, does it work in a converse way as well? Meaning if you're in a negative environment and you see someone being called out and cussed out and treated poorly, does that have that same ripple effect?

It's even greater. It sets. So if you're in a classroom or if you're in an office situation, like, I was here recently in a meeting in New York and one of the. One of the people was really, really rude to one of the other team members. It set off everybody's amygdala. Everybody in there now is on high alert. The message that is broadcast is, don't ever question anything that I say. And so they all shut down. You know, neurologically, it's going to take a minimum of 25 to 30 minutes to even begin recover from that. So when you go off on somebody, and it could be, I mean, there's 2,000 micro expressions just in your face. And so we put those in seven different categories. Heather, if you roll your eyes or smirk or wrinkle your forehead or all of those negative emotions we pick up on in 1 25th of a second, we read faces so quickly, and all we're trying to figure out is, are we safe? Are we okay? Is this person like me or not like me? And if you don't like me, I really don't want to learn from you. In fact, I'm actually going to shut down. Wow.

You just remind me in the book, you talk about how children learn to read at some, you know, whatever age it is, they're reading the Alphabet and the letters strung together in words. However, they learn to read feeling and people's faces from birth on. And it's amazing. And that's where it goes back to that first story that if you're used to having people yelling and, you know, that becomes your norm, that that's normal. You find yourself later in life and looking at these patterns, and we end up back in that story again because we believe that's our truth and that's all there is in life, which it is not. And I want everyone to know that is not the case, but because for a long time I believe that grew up in a high stress environment, found myself. Found myself in a high stress environment years later. That's not by chance. I was believing that was where I belong, believing that's all that existed, when in fact, today I know it's not.

That's right. That's why people get in abusive situations. When they come out of abusive situations, it's comfortable, it's normal to them. And that confirmation bias kicks in. You really don't think you deserve anything any better than that. And you know, Heather, it's interesting because when I finished graduate school, I had a 4.0, and people are like, what the heck happened? You know? But I had a couple of professors who really believed I was brilliant. Now, I confess that inside I still think I'm not very smart, but there's a huge advantage from that, and that is that I. I go into every meeting thinking everybody knows more than me, so I learn more than anybody. So I win anyway. And by not being very smart to begin with, I hire people who are really, really bright and they keep me out of trouble. So, you know, you just reframe it. I mean, you want to reclaim it? Reframe it. You want to reclaim it? Reframe it.

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Free well that reminds me of the chapter in the book your wife is sharing who happens to be the CEO of your company, which I think is so amazing. She's talking to you about her childhood. She was in a foster home and how she struggled for money for food and she found herself at 14 working. I think it was at a Tasty Freeze and that wasn't the hard part for her, the hard part was walking home alone in the dark at night to the foster home and how you sat with her and hugged her and comforted her and to reframe that story into something different that could help her rewire the thoughts around that memory. How does that work?

You know, Heather, it's really personal that you even bring that up. And it was a precious time for us. Susan, actually, and her sisters all went through series of foster homes, multiple homes over several years, and they were separated, which was much, much harder for them. And she lied about her age to be able to get a job at 14 so she could feed herself. And you know, when she was telling me that story, I'd never heard that. And as she, you know, was sharing that with me and I could see the fear and everything come up because, you know, little 14 year old girl, I mean, all little girls in the middle of the night are very, very vulnerable. And. And you know, I could see this fear coming up inside of her. She was just telling me about this and it was many years ago and you know, it was really a sweet moment because I, you know, I just reached over and just hugged her and I said, babe, if I'd been there, I'd have walked with you. You will never, ever walk alone again, I promise you. And so just think about that. I would have been right there with you, honey, and I would have been holding your hand and walking you home. And that's the picture that we now have together in our lives is that, you know, she knew that at some point she was going to marry. I knew at some point I was going to marry. And so we go back and we say, you know, even at that age, we were meant for each other. And so just put me there with you, babe, because I was there with you. We just hadn't met yet. And so that's how we recovered those painful times in our own lives, you.

Know, and that helps change her mind and her thoughts and actually changes her memory, correct?

Yeah, yeah, it's that, you know, part of that too is reframing that time, realizing that when she walked alone like that, that one of the things we were going to do, see to it that the children that we knew would never be in that spot. And we've raised 20 children, Heather. I mean, we have a huge family. And you know, the children in our lives, they're not alone. They don't walk alone.

Flip, what about the people that don't have a great husband or they don't have that big family? What about the idea of looking to a higher power and rethinking that memory? Is that something they can do?

Well, I think so. I, you know, I mean, I believe in God. And so when my dad was not necessarily who I wanted him to be and hoped he would be, but when I found out I had a father that was not just earthly, that was a big time in my life. The other thing, too, that you can do with that, Heather, is that if you don't have somebody in your life like that or and you're not spiritually in a place where you're ready for that kind of decision or that kind of thinking, the one thing that you can do that I think is extremely powerful is you can be that person for other people. You know, I don't necessarily have to have those people in my life, but I have the opportunity to be that person. And we're sitting here right now. A couple of my team are here, and we've got a lady in our company whose family's pretty much rejected her. It's been very painful for her. And do you know what she's doing? She's volunteering at the hospital, in the pediatric ward. She has become that powerful person in the lives of so many other people. And so right now, there's deep pain in one sense, but she's reframed that. And she said, you know, they're not going to write that story. You know, it was a very abusive, alcoholic situation. They're not going to write my story. I'm going to write a story where I can love and give, and it's a beautiful story.

And when you have a situation like that, like you did with your father, you chose to forgive him ultimately. And I, like in the book that you write something to the effect of you decide to release someone from that prison of guilt and blame, only to find out the person you release from prison was you.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that I see people that they live with a lot of bitterness or resentment or unforgiveness, and those are, man, I'm telling you, that's a heavy weight to carry through life, and I'm just not built to want to carry that. And with both my parents being able to go to them and hug them, my mother hugged me when I was 42, and I don't know that my dad had ever hugged me. But being able to go to both my parents, they were long divorced, but to be able to go and hug them and have them stand there very awkwardly and kind of like, what is this? But it Was okay. It was okay. It wasn't about how they would respond. It was about what I wanted to give them. And I remember I kissed my dad on the cheek and told him I loved him. And he started crying, just sobbing. And I was like, dad, you know, I forgive you. We're good. We're good. And then, you know, a few years later, getting to crawl up in bed with him and, you know, put his head in my lap and say goodbye to him as he died. You know, those are special moments, but they're gifts you give to the other person, but it's a gift you give yourself as well. I mean, I see people forgive things that, you know, you go across the world, and I've seen atrocities. And you look at the Hutus and the Tutsis in Rwanda, and you see people forgiving people where they actually killed every person in their family. And you're so humbled by it. And I think, oh, my gosh. And I see people that can't forgive somebody saying something rude to them. Get over yourself. It's not that hard. Let it go. It's not worth it.

Have you ever struggle with your confidence? When I hear you talk and I. It seems to me you're in such command of your life and the vision of the potential of even more greatness that you're pursuing. Do you ever second guess yourself anymore?

Yeah. Yeah, I do. I, you know, I always wonder if I'm making the right decision and that sort of thing, especially as it relates to our companies, because, you know, there are hundreds and hundreds of lives that depend on us making the right decisions. And so I think. I think about those things. But, you know, let me tell you where confidence comes from. And, Heather, this speaks to something is so critical to your podcast, which are so powerful. But confidence comes from skill acquisition, end of story. It doesn't come from people telling you you're great. Are you telling yourself you're great? Are you telling yourself you have great potential? Confidence comes from skill acquisition. When you learn something, your confidence goes up. Now think about this. So your little boy, he learns his colors and his confidence goes up. He learns his numbers and his confidence goes up. And he wants to tell every living soul he can count to 10, and, oh, my gosh, it's astounding. And then when he can get from 11 to 20, oh, his life is completely transformed. When they learn to write their name. I mean, think about this, Heather. You can visually see the joy in his face when he learned to write his name. All of those skills that he's acquiring his confidence is going up every time. So when we start to learn something new, we're not confident at that. We're just not. You know, if you took me out right now and said, fwhip, I want you to play rugby. I don't play rugby. I don't know how to play rugby. So I have no confidence about playing rugby. Ask me to go stand on a mound, on a baseball field, any place on the planet, and I am totally comfortable pitching, I guarantee you. So you look at that. So now the question is, how do we grow confidence? So back to your question about do I ever question myself or worry about that? Yeah, when it's a new territory. But here's what I have confidence in. I have confidence in my team. I have confidence that they know what they're doing. I have confidence that we've been there and done it before. I have confidence that we can learn. I have confidence that no matter what the challenge, I'm going to find somebody that I know that has done it and done it really, really well. I'm going to find somebody to teach them me how to be better. I'm going to find you follow. That's an endless list. It's endless. And so I want to learn how to do great podcasts. Call Heather. She knows what she's doing. Well, that's true. And I promise you that my confidence will go up because you're very, very good at this. And so it doesn't bother me to be in a situation, you know, that's the joy, too, Heather, for you and I both, we have failed. And you know what the beauty of that is? Failure does not scare me a bit. I've been poor. I've been poor. It doesn't bother me to be poor. I made it. I survived that. So when I see people and they've been beaten, they've been abused, they've been raped, they've been assaulted, they've been fired, they've been undervalued, they've been treated despicably. You know, my first question is, did you survive it? Well, of course they did. They wouldn't be there. Did you survive it? Did you learn anything from it? Is there anything we can take away from it? Are you better today than you were then? What can we do? How do we use that for the future? So all of those things actually are building our confidence. You and I both have had tremendous adversities in our life. I'm not afraid of adversity. Are you? No.

No. The more I've put Myself into those fear moments, into those situations that are new to me that I'm not confident in. The more I've seen that movie, the less it affects me anymore.

That's right. And so you have confidence because you have acquired all kinds of skills. So it's not me sitting here saying, oh, Heather, you're amazing. You're talented, beautiful, gifted, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's me sitting here saying, tell me the things you do really well, and you can sit here. And apart from humility. Okay, let's just kind of set that aside for a second. You can sit here and easily say, well, you know, Flip, I'm really gifted at this, and I feel like I'm really talented at this. I've got some good abilities here. I'm really proficient. This. I've done this and this and this really well in my past. You follow me? So all of those things, they lay a strong foundation for you. And so that's where confidence comes from. It comes from skill acquisition. That's why teachers are so powerful in a kid's life. I can teach you how to do something, and you walk away and you've got it, and you can do it, and that is awesome. You know, it's a pretty cool concept.

We can all be teachers and we can all be writing on someone at any point in time, which also helps us create confidence, helps us write that new story. Flip, what is it that you want to leave the audience with today from your third story? What message is it that you're trying to really impart on the world?

There's more. There's more. I mean, Heather, I look at you and read about you, listen to your podcast, and you are doing amazing things. Let me tell you, you're not doing a fraction of what you will do. You are not doing. I mean, you're not doing a fraction of what is there. The more you let yourself go, the more you start saying, you know what? I wonder. I wonder. And it's in that wonderment that we find greatness. We really find who we can be. I mean, we can forgive, we can love, we can grow, we can become, we can build, we can create. Yeah, there's more. There's more, my friend. There's more.

I love hearing that. And that's the same for everyone. Not just for me, not just for Flip. For everyone. There is more out there. And when you get this book, your third story, which is at Amazon, every retailer, every bookstore, it's everywhere. You will see how you can write that new story and begin living Your potential. I promise you this. I am going to be working on my third story now that I'm cognizant. It's out there. It's possible, Flip, if people want to check you out, they want to get your YouTube videos, they want to hear about your other book, they want to hear about your company. What's your website?

Well, our other book, the Flipside, you know, is available pretty much everywhere. My Twitter is flipflipping, Facebook, Flip Flop, Flippin, Instagram, Flip Flippin. It's pretty easy. And that name, I mean, I know it's people tease me, but it's my name. What can I say?

Well, you made it easy for all of us. We're so grateful. I'm so grateful for this book, grateful for the work that you're doing. I can't wait to follow along and see what you do next. And I can promise you I'm going for more as a result of what I've learned from you.

Yeah, thanks, Heather. Great being with you today. Congratulations. You know, I'm just so proud of you, Heather. You just think about what's ahead and is really exciting. Congratulations.

Thank you. Thank you so much for paving the way. And I will be right back. Hang tight for me.

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And after reading Flip's book and speaking with him and, you know, getting to know him, I'm really evaluating what is that story that I'm telling myself currently and in the past. And now I can look back and see, you know, when I was back in the radio business and I was really scared of getting fired or what's going to happen. And I need this job. I can hear that story that I was telling myself that this is the only thing I can do. And look at me now. Right? Look at me now. Yes, I ran a large company. I was responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars, and I did a great job at it, but that doesn't mean that's the only thing I could do. No, I became an author, I became a podcast host, I became a professional speaker. Who knows what I'm going to become next? Because you know what I realized? I can't just write this one story and say, this is it. Heck, no. That's not serving me or the world. You know, keep growing and keep pushing your boundaries and see what else is out there for you. I spent two decades not growing and being stagnant, essentially. Although on the outside it appeared, you know, to be great. I just don't want that for anyone. I want all of us to challenge ourselves, to grow and to see what's next. Like Jesse Itzler says, you know, you only have 40 summers left or, you know, however many years left. And I like the idea of looking at his summers because when you start thinking there's only 40 summers left, if we're lucky, wow. I really want to start doing some amazing things. And in order to enable myself to do that, to have that life, I need to create a really fun and meaningful, purpose driven life. And that's what I've done, that's what I'm doing, that's what I'm building, and I want that for you. So anything's possible when we stop telling ourselves that fake story. So I want to actually answer a question around that. So I. A really good friend of mine, Jess, was unhappy at work and she called me this week and said, heather, you know, I need your help. I'm having a moment. Sure, what's the problem? Well, I'm going to go to work tomorrow and my boss is going to make me work inside the office. Currently, I'm an outside salesperson, but now I'm going to have to work there. I'm a single mom. I can't get there for the times, you know, she just starts unloading, flipping out and freaking out. And the first thing I said was this. Number one, that has not happened yet. You're telling yourself a story of something that at this point is not true. Right. So we've got to separate from that. There's no space for emotion in business ever. Nothing good ever happens when you bring emotion into business. So I said, we've got to detach from that. I understand you feel upset, but you're upset about something that hasn't occurred. Now, she kept telling me, but it's going to happen. You have to. I know it's going to happen tomorrow, okay? I'm happy that you can predict the future. However, I can't. So right now, we can play through what could potentially happen. Just remind yourself this is not real, right? The story you're telling yourself is not real. And it's always easier, right, to see it with somebody else. But when you're going through it, it feels like a panic. And believe me, I remember when I was dealing with that villain that I worked for, I was telling myself stories that weren't true. They ended up coming true, right? I ended up getting fired. But you waste a lot of time in this what if phase. It's just so not worth it. It's such bs. But anyway, so I said, yes, we know this isn't true. However, we can play it out if you'd like. Now, anytime I go into a situation in business and someone's pulling some game on me, if her boss was going to change her job miraculously and say, from now on, everyone works here 9 to 5 5, instead of being an outside seller, that wasn't what you signed up for when you came to work for the company. So the way that I lead with a situation like that is I say the same thing. I'm confused. And it's a really amazing and powerful statement. I'm confused because you're not creating drama with that supervisor or that leader in the company. You're asking a great question, which is you essentially need more information. Now, you're not agreeing to anything. You're not not agreeing to anything, but you're looking for more information. Because we need to find out who's ultimately driving this decision. Where is this coming from? Why? What is the goal for this? And then the whole reason we're doing it is because we want to find a way for Jess not to have to go into the office and work 9 to 5. Now, what's also interesting is Jess had called me a week before this and said, hey, I want to update my resume. I got to get out of this company. It's, you know, it's not going a great direction. I need to do something bigger, more purpose driven. And we were having talks around changing her entire career. So I reminded her of that. I said, you're freaking out, but at the same time, you didn't want to be there anymore. You know, it's so funny that when someone tells us they're going to, you know, move our cheese or change things for us, that's when we want to panic. But in actuality, you want it to leave anyways. So having that bigger picture is really helpful. So I said two things, like, let's get this resume updated. Let's start taking action to move you out of this company anyway, because that is your goal. And then let's also address how you could potentially handle this make believe situation. So the first thing I would do is say, I'm confused. You know, where is this coming from? What are you trying to achieve with this? Ask that you have, because we're not committing to anything. And you never have to commit to anything on the spot, period. End of story. And so, you know, I really felt like I set her up to go in there and come from a place of confidence. And it's important to remember in any negotiation discussion, the person who cares the least wins. That's just the way it is. So if you go in there, oh my gosh, I'm desperate to keep this job. I can't lose this job. And believe me, I get it right. I've been there. You lose all your power, and the other person has it all. I will never forget that day that I got fired by that villain. And she pushed those two memos in front of me. She held all the power in that moment. And she knew it because she was holding a big check. And she said to me, you can pick which memo you sign, but one memo, if you sign it, you get this big check. The other one you don't. In that moment, she had all the power. When I pushed those two memos back to her and declined to sign either one of them, I took all the power. The person that came cares the least or that needs the other person the least wins. So that's really what I wanted to set Jess up for, was to go in there feeling confident. She's a top seller, she's a superstar, she's a person of integrity and kindness, and people love her. Anyone wants her on their team. So if this guy is going to change the expectations job description, then this is no longer the job for her. And if you can't go in there and show up as yourself, as your best self, that other person's not going to say, see that confidence? And they're going to feel that they're the ones that can just cut you from the team. So really showing up as your best Version of you, your most confident version, and realizing that you hold the power in that discussion. Because I will tell you what, the amount of cost that goes into turnover for companies is massive. Millions and millions of dollars in recruitment and onboarding and finding the wrong person and having to bring another person in. You know, it's a tremendous amount of expense for a company. And I just wanted just to remember that because I had been, you know, at the C suite position and evaluating our turnover was a big opportunity for us to hire better, you know, start being smarter about the people we brought on. But once we found good people, retention was critical. So don't lose sight of your value when you work for a company or for another person. So often we want to say, oh, the company's in the position of power. The reality is that the company's smart and you're a strong employee and you're doing a great job. You need to realize that you are in a position of power and you need to be treated well. So separate emotion from it. Get right with who you are, stand in your confidence, step into your confidence and go into that meeting realizing that you didn't really want to be there anyway. So you were already taking steps to move yourself out of that career to a new industry. So go in there, shine your light, agree to nothing, ask fantastic questions like, I'm confused, and know that taking these steps is going to open new opportunities for you. So if you're not happy where you are, get ready to rock something new and take action against it. We updated Jess's resume. She reached out to another company on Friday and I suggested that in the email she sent the other company because we want that meeting now. We want to take action, get her out of that other situation. Now to write an email. I'd love to see if we can meet next week because you want to tie people down to a date and time. I've got some amazing opportunities to drive revenue for you, and I really think it will impact your business very quickly in 2019. So sense of urgency, allowing the other person to know you're there to create revenue for them. You're there to change their business, impact their world in a positive way, and that there is that sense of urgency to meet right away. So Jess did it. It's in motion. I can't wait to hear when I speak to her today how that meeting went when she gets that set up. And for you, take action against your big picture goals and put yourself first step into your confidence and shine your light because you are definitely worth it and I'm excited to hear how it goes. Send me a DM and let me know and always use that line in business anytime you're up against a difficult boss or person. I'm confused because it definitely puts you in a great situation to gain more insight and better position yourself for success. So I am going to take off for LA now. I'm hoping you have a fantastic day and week and please continue to share the podcast with your people. Please rate and review if you haven't yet. It means the world to me. Gosh, it really separates shows and allows them to rank on Apple podcasts. And when you DM me a picture of your review, I buy you my $299 confidence video course as a big thank you and you can find me on any social media platform. So check me out at Heather Monahan, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. I'm everywhere and I can't wait to hear from you. So here's to rocking your confidence yet again this week. Let's go for what.