Empowered Blueprint

This is episode 267 of the Empowered Team Podcast. Guess what? You can start your year strong by deciding what you want and creating a plan. We've bundled our values creation and Empowered Blueprint courses and provided a holiday discount to help you do just that. Check the show notes for the link and coupon code. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now your host, executive coach and life strategist, Kari Schneider. Hello. Hello and welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast. I am your host, Kari Schneider, and I'm here to help you optimize your performance in your leadership, in your life, in all of the things that you are up to. How do we do that? We typically do that with self mastery. Today we're talking about a topic that it's an empowered blueprint. And I don't know if that means anything to you, but I'm going to make it really clear so that you can get the results in your life that you didn't expect. Effect. So here's what I mean by that. There's a saying, and this is part of the words of the haka, this chant of the new in the New Zealand All Blacks, the most winning rugby team in the world, and the New Zealand All Blacks have this chant and dance that's pregame that is so threatening and so famous and so incredible that if you haven't seen it before, please look it up because it's super entertaining. And years ago I had athletes who competed against the All Blacks. When Team Canada on the Canadian rugby team was playing the All Blacks, they had to face up to this incredibly intimidating chant. And this haka, in the words of the haka, if it were translated, one of the lines is aiming for the stars to reach the top of the mountain, aiming for the stars to reach the top of a mountain. And what that I interpret that to mean is going for something that is so beyond what you think you can. And what inevitably happens is you get higher than you ever have been, you end up reaching a new height, the top of the mountain, because you were reaching for the stars, because you were going for something so much greater than you'd ever experienced before. This is this space between desire and dreams. And the space that's in between desire and dreams can be a space that's a little uncertain. And it's this, how do we do it? It's what has to happen next. And we end up often living in this miserable spot of the unknown. The miserable maybe, maybe I can do it. Maybe I can't. My dreams are over there. My desire is here, but I'm somewhere in between. And so this past year I have aimed for the stars and I reached somewhere on the mountain. And the way that I was able to do that was because of what I call an empowered blueprint. The Empowered blueprint provided me structure and a plan in order to achieve all the things that I wanted to achieve last year. But it all went out the window because of the illness that came on unexpectedly that changed every single thing of every area of my life. So how do these tie together? Here's the point. The point is that this time of year for most of us, we're starting to think about next year. This time of year for most of the businesses that I work with or businesses I've worked with in the past, they are doing some sort of planning activity. Maybe it is a planning retreat with all the key leaders. Maybe it is a strat plan where it's going to be a public facing document that has the strategic plan, the projections, the company core values, the mission and the vision. So oftentimes as individuals, we're doing some version of that too. We're thinking about what's coming up in the next year. And last year I unveiled a tool called the Empowered Blueprint to those that I was coaching. And the Empowered blueprint was the planning step by step in order to have all of the actions needed to have all of the dreams or the major things come to fruition in the following year. So about a year ago at around this time, we're going through this brand new plan that I've developed. I'm so excited about it. We look at exactly what we want. We look at the, the now, next and far vision. So we have, we're as clear as we can possibly be. We start breaking it down on an annual plan timeline. So we're getting what's called this date line and we're plugging in when we want things to happen for the whole year. And then we get really clear on what we're going to stop doing and what we want start doing and how we're going to get the support and what the problems could be and what, how we're going to mitigate that until finally we work it down into having the actual day to day actions, the day to day steps, the month to month steps, the quarter to quarter steps in order to have those big rocks fulfilled on that all of us, all of us participating wanted to have happen for the following year. So we did all these things. And it was magnificent. It was really, really powerful. And by mid January, when I'm just diving into my actions on my empowered blueprint, and I'm going step by step and I'm starting to get a little momentum, I get so sick, I can't even sit up. I can't even sit up in a vehicle. I can't walk for more than. I can't stand for more than 10 minutes. I can't even eat. I. I can't eat enough. I'm. My whole nervous system is out of whack. I was so, so sick, and it was so hard, and it threw everything that I was going for out the window, Literally out the window. But here's the beauty. The beauty is that I'd already created a structure. The beauty was that I already had clarity. The beauty was that I had to say no to a whole bunch of things and cancel or discontinue certain things. But the beauty was that I kept only what I felt would light me up and potentially help heal me. And where this empowered blueprint came in was that I had created all this structure and all this action. And for a period of time, I was devastated. I was absolutely devastated that I couldn't even follow through on my normal workouts. You have to think that I've. I've been in the practice of working out daily, Whether it's a recovery walk or a heavy lift or an interval run or a light jog. There's something that I've had in a plan every day for decades. So it is part of me. It is part of my identity to work out every day. And I couldn't even. I couldn't even go for a leisurely stroll. I was so sick. And it just kept going week after week. And I was trying to find help, but because of the empowered blueprint, I had already done some key steps. I had. I was. One of the things in my blueprint was putting into place a dream, a bucket list dream that I wanted to initiate. And that bucket list dream was to have my whole family go on an annual vacation together. All seven of us turned out to be eight of us. One of the. The boyfriends came along. Boyfriend. A boyfriend came along. And so there was eight of us. But in my plan, I was initiating instituting something that was a life, a dream, a bucket list dream of mine. And I had done some work earlier last year and realized that I didn't want to wait another 10 years to have my bucket list come true. I wanted to start it now because I realized how our older 4 kids were out of the house and all we were going to do was grow further and further apart. So if we didn't have a plan in place to get all of us together besides for three days or two days at Christmas, then we wouldn't actually have the kind of wonderful interactions, adventure, curiosity, amazing experiences that I was dreaming about. I was imagining and fantasizing about these amazing epic adventures that we'd go on as a family. And I realized I didn't want to wait 10 years for that. So I was going to try and start a dream come true. And I was using my Empowered blueprint as one of the ways to institute it. I was also using that blueprint to forward certain parts of my business to continue projects on. So the big project we have going on up north, which is restoring an old fishing camp and getting it, turning it into a space for retreats and events and family occasions. And so I had all these things planned in there, but I was too sick to do anything. Too sick to do anything. I couldn't even do my day to day plans. I couldn't do my workouts, I couldn't, I couldn't fulfill on a full work day that I would normally fulfill on. I had to take an appointment with a client and then lie down. I was filling in any of those other gaps of time with appointments with naturopaths and doctors and specialists and blood work and figuring all the things out. And so I felt like everything I had worked for, everything I had made, all the planning I had done, everything went out the window. But now we are almost a year later and I can see and I'm, I'm. Some days I'm at 60% of what I used to be, and some days I'm at 80% of what I used to be. And I'm not fully back, but I'm so, so much better. But because I did that Empowered Blueprint, because I started to put times and dates and deadlines and milestones and specific actions to certain points in time, because I did all of that structure for my year, that that is what enabled key things to have happened that I, in January, February, March, I thought could never have happened because I was so sick. I thought everything I wanted would have to be canceled. Every plan that I had made, every action that I'd put in place, I was, I was thinking it might need to be canceled. But I kept trying. And I had this plan. And because I had that plan, we had organized where we were going to go on this trip. We had done the pick of who was going to get to do pick the first location we had chosen, the location we had gone through getting the kids excited, getting everybody enrolled, getting everyone's time off booked and the airplane tickets booked and all the things booked, we had done all those things and so they were already in place. And so it provided me this carrot in front of me. If I could just be better enough to go on this trip, if I could just be better enough and put this illness into remission by July, by my birthday, because that trip was on my birthday, my 50th birthday. And so I was trying so hard to have the mindset to support being able to be on this trip. And there were so many points where I didn't think I could even travel. There were so many points where I knew I couldn't hike, let alone do a little workout. I just couldn't do any of the things. And May came around and I tried to do a little trip with some friends. And it was awful for me in so many ways because I was so impaired. I was so much less than what I ordinarily would be. And I tried and it was still fun. And there were wonderful humans there and it was relaxing and a lot of things that I really did need. And it also showed me how far I was from being able to go on this bucket list trip to Zion national park with all of our family and be able to do these epic world class hikes. I was very aware. And yet this is what was being planned. And we kept planning it. I did not say once that I might have to cancel. I did not say once that this wasn't going to be a thing. By May, we're two months away from this trip. I realized I could barely get on an airplane, let alone go on a hike. I realized that if I was to do any sort of vacation, it was going to be lying on my back beside a pool. Because I simply still couldn't do the things that I wanted to do. But I was making small steps in progress. And there was my structured plan, this blueprint plan that I had made. And so with it in front of me, I kept going. And little by little, I got a little better, a little better, a little better. And I tried to walk a little longer. I tried to do a few workouts. It actually knowing that I had that coming up, knowing that we had it booked, it had me trying to keep going every day. I already had that habit. I would wake up every morning to do my workout even if I couldn't do the Workout. I would wake up every day to do my lift or my walk or my run, even though I couldn't run, even though I couldn't even walk far. But I would get up every day and have that scheduled just like I did that whole blueprint. It was already structured and scheduled into my day and I would go to do it even if I couldn't do it. So some days it looked like trying to do a push up and I couldn't, I would fall on my face. Some days it would look like trying to do a walk and I would get 10 minutes out and I'd have to turn back. Some days it would look like I would try to go for a run and my legs wouldn't even work properly and I couldn't run at all. And when I say try to go for a run, what I meant was try to run 20 paces. And I couldn't. My heart rate would go too high. I would literally feel like my chest was going to have a heart attack. And not from lack of fitness. It was nothing to do with that. It was all to do with the illness, the disease that I was dealing with, that I still am dealing with. But I speak of it as though I am managing it, I am putting it into its place. So this kept going on until finally we're into July and we're about to travel and I'm at a point where I can walk, I can walk further distances, but I certainly can't do a two hour hike. I'm at a point where I can do some little body weight exercises where I can do a few push ups, whereas before I couldn't do any. So I've made progress and I'm so excited and I try really hard, but I wasn't there yet. And finally we get there and I'm on hikes that I, my husband filmed some of it and I would watch myself walk and I couldn't walk properly. I look like a deer in, in a baby deer where they pick up their feet higher and wider. And I had this film of realizing how much different I was from my normal physical self. And yet there I was. There I was on this trip with my family on this amazing vacation and there I was going out on hikes and I did the hikes that I thought I could do safely without having a heart attack or keeling over or any of those things. And my family did them with me. And then I would go and rest and I would rest some more and lie down. And there were two major hikes that were several Hour hikes, they were about 8 hour or 12 hour hikes, maybe not that long. They were about probably seven to 10 hours. That normally would be something that I would be leading. I would be egging everyone on. I'd be the one planning it and really excited to go on those things. And I just couldn't. I had to bow out. And instead, right after my birthday, I went on a horseback ride and it lit me up. And I could do the horseback ride and I could do some of the hikes. And my point here is that if I had allowed the illness to dictate what my year was going to look like, I never would have made it to those milestones. By putting a structured plan in place for my ideal year, that structured plan ended up saving me from having everything spiral down the toilet out of control. That structured plan had me still get up and attempt even though I couldn't do it. That structured plan had me say that, yes, I was going to be able to do that bucket list trip, that bucket list vacation with my whole family, even though at that time, when I was saying it, there's no way I could. But by the time it arrived, I could do some of the things I wanted to do. I could be on the trip and be completely present with my family. And I had the most epic time, the most epic vacation on my 50th birthday with my family. And it was beautiful and it was wonderful. And there's no way it would have happened unless I had developed the entire plan and dream of all the things that I wanted and then structured it and put it in place. I had the deadlines, I had the dates, I had the vision, I had the communication that all had to happen by certain times because I planned it all out. But if I hadn't had that plan and this illness had hit me, I would have been spiraling. I wouldn't have known what was next. And I was so compromised. I had so much brain fog, I had so much challenge, so much difficulty that there was no way I could have thought for what I wanted in that moment. Everything that was going on for me in January, February, March, April, everything that was happening through the first five months of 2023 was all about survival. It was all about trying to see what I could eat, getting my next meal lying down, making sure I had someone to drive for me, because I couldn't drive in a whole bunch of scenarios. So for five months, I was just trying to survive, trying to figure out what had to come into place in order to heal this illness. And in those five months, I couldn't do any planning. I couldn't make decisions. I could simply pull back, pull back, pull back, go into a cocoon and try and survive. And yet, because I had that plan, some major things were in place. And I kept speaking as though they were happening. And I promise you, it helped my healing, it helped my growth, it helped my progress so much more had there not been been a plan in place. Because here's what happens. We're human. We have this beautiful, badass super genius part of our brain called our prefrontal cortex. And it is the planner, it is the thinker, it was the decision maker, it is the future seer. And we have this other beautiful part of our brain called our limbic system. And it is our primal brain. And that part of our brain is there for us to feel for, there for us to have our. Our system running. Our heart rate, our respiratory rate, our blood pressure, it's just operating the system. Keep going, keep going. But it's also our emotional center and our memory. That primal brain says, oh, guess what? You're in survival mode. Then everything else shuts down. We need to survive. And that's what that primal brain does best. So my whole prefrontal cortex, my badass super genius, was offline, Completely offline. So there was no planning, there was no decision making, there was no thinking about my future. I had the worst brain fog I've ever experienced in my life. I was living with the most horrendous hangover. That's what it felt like. The most horrendous hangover every single day that I didn't know if I was going to have a bathroom accident, vomit, not be able to think. And so the plan that I made, the plan called that empowered blueprint, was the thing that helped me still achieve, Excel, experience, heal. When I was offline. My badass super genius was offline. And yet I had something in place that kept me going. It is the thing. Having a plan allowed me to have an epic bucket list vacation with my family that we had never done before. It allowed me to continue progress with my healing because I already had an optimal physical performance plan in place. So I just kept substituting in what I needed for healing in that where I would have had a high performance workout, but instead I had to have a healing plan. What else? I still committed to and followed through with four months of being on site and continuing the construction program progress and the restoration progress to happen at Wycliff Lodge. And I didn't even know if I'D be able to get there, let alone do the overseeing of the work, being the general contractor and doing my work while there. But I did, because I didn't have to think about what needed to happen. I just had a plan already in place. So this is what happens when we aim for something. We aim for the stars, but we actually build the rocket ship to get there. We build the hot air balloon to get there. We build the structure, the plan, the times, the date lines, the deadlines. We build everything that needs to happen. We decide on the actions ahead of time. That is our hot air balloon. That is our vehicle to get to the stars. And then something happens, like somebody blows a hole in your hot air balloon, but you get to the mountain or you get to the top of the mountain anyway, because you built the vehicle to get there. And that's what an empowered blueprint is. It's the vehicle to get there. And that's the thing that saved my butt when my badass super genius, my prefrontal cortex, this part of my brain was not working the way I hoped it would because I didn't see that curveball coming. So I implore you that whatever you do, start creating a strategy, start creating a plan. Start creating an empowered blueprint. You can, we can provide that for you. We've got the course, we've got the system, we've got the tools for you to create your own empowered blueprint for. For your next year. But if you don't, that's fine. Just create something, some sort of structure to follow through on the thing called your vision, your dream, your bucket list, the thing that you want to see happen, or the three things you want to see happen. Coming up in 2024, create the plan of a vehicle. The actions that are going to get you there. And if you don't know how, we have the tool for you to do that. It's called the empowered blueprint. So we don't know what's going to happen. I didn't know what's going to happen. I thought I had it all dialed in. I had the perfect plan. I knew what I want. I'm all about growth. A new year means a new level of growth for me. That's what I thought. And then I really got knocked down more than a peg. I got knocked down flat to the ground. And I can easily say that the work that I did with my amazing brain ahead of time is the thing that allowed me to at least get up that mountain, even though I was aiming for the stars. And that is what I wish for you. Look at your vision, go for your dream, see what you really want and start putting a plan in place. You will thank yourself for it because when we think with this part of our brain, then we're not relying on our primal part of our brain to do what this part of our brain is meant to do. So be your own badass super genius. Plan the thing out when you are in an amazing state and create your next steps up your mountain so you can see new dreams come true, new visions, new realizations, new bucket lists and make them happen. Have a wonderful rest of your day. We are here for you to help your dreams come true. Keep Being Empowered if you enjoy listening to the Empowered Team Podcast, you'll love being on the Empowered Team. 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