Mindset Monday - The Flip Side

This is episode 140 of the Empowered Team Podcast. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now your host, Vitaldi and peak performance coach, Kari Schneider. Hello. Hello. Good morning. Good morning. Happy Monday, whatever it is. So much love out to you. Wrong side. Here we go. This is my doterra thing, my oils. So much love out to you. Today it's Mindset Monday. It's the beginning of a powerful week. And I am nervous coming into this, this Mindset Monday because what I'm going to share is a little personal and I always have an increase in anxiety when I have something personal to share. And I'm sharing it with you because I think it'll be very powerful for you. And the reason is, is that I'm privy to a lot of people's background lives, meaning the lives that they don't show to maybe their co workers or some of their friends. And so I have this inside look into what's really going on for a lot of people. And what I end up seeing is that there's, there's so much for everyone that everyone's trying to handle. And it's things like heavy things, hard things, challenges within family life, alcoholism, abuse, racism, incest. Like there's, there's financial issues, there's so many things that people are dealing with that they're not talking about out in the open because it's like this hidden behind life that's going on for them. And the topic today is about finding the good in even the most awful of things. And so many people are going through the most awful of things. And so I'm going to share a personal experience that happened recently that is one of those examples of how the hell do you find something really good when the most awful thing, or what you think at the time is the most awful thing that's happened. So over this past. A week ago, I had a family member die, my aunt, Verity Ann. And she's the most beautiful, amazing, incredible human, just full of light and love and warmth and humor and all of the amazing things. And she lived a long, ripe, incredible life of 90 plus years. And she died in the US last weekend. And my father could not go. And it was because he's in Canada, she's in the US where she died. And there's restrictions on the border and all kinds of things. He didn't have somebody to help bring him. And long story short, he couldn't make it and it was awful for him. She was his closest sister, like a mother to him. Very, very close relationship. And at the same time, I couldn't get to him because he's about a 24 hour drive from me. And there were a number of restrictions for all of us. And what ended up happening is he didn't have Facebook to be able to stream the funeral service. And then there were all sorts of suggestions. Can you email him a link? Can you text him a link? Well, he doesn't have a cell phone and he doesn't have a new email. The old email just got shut down about a few weeks ago. There were so many technical difficulties and he was in an awful state about it. And I've heard throughout Covid about people who have lost loved ones and not been able to be with them, literally looking at them through glass or just trying to help loved ones who are still alive, trying to be with them. And this felt really present because he couldn't go to the funeral. He was alone. He couldn't see the streaming service. And it was just this awful stage of mourning. And I got the streaming onto my computer and I thought, well, maybe he could listen in. And I called him, I tried to turn the volume up. I put him close to the computer. I said, can you hear it? Can you hear it? He could hear it. And he started to listen and I could hear him sobbing. And he. I described to him what the service was like, and the music and the songs and the ritualistic Catholic funeral service was very familiar to him. He used to be an altar boy years and years ago. Even though he hasn't been a churchgoer for a really long time, it was an experience that brought him right there. The music, hearing the priest going through the ceremony of the funeral service, and it brought him right there. And I'm holding the phone and I can hear him sobbing and I'm describing what's going on. And I felt so close to him. I felt like I was with him and I felt like I was bringing him to that service. And when the service was done, I said I'd call one of the family members and I'd tell him what the rest of the ceremony was at the same cemetery. And I talked to him later and I did. I called him later. And then we were able to reminisce. And my dad is not a man to be very close or to share very much. And we reminisced. We reminisced about his sister. And I can easily say that out of an awful situation of death, an awful situation of not being able to mourn or grieve or be in a community, a family community, as he normally would have been able to. The flip side, the positive, was that we were able to connect in a way like never before. He was able to open up in a way like never before. It allowed an ability to mourn and grieve that he may not have had other than this scenario. And even though it doesn't seem like an amazing positive flip side to something that is not great, it could be an awful situation for him, it still had a flip side. There still is a positive side, and I want to emphasize that and show you how you can look for it, even if it is the most horrible situation. Our family has gone through deaths and suicides and depression and a number of things, and there is still a flip side, even though it's really hard to see in the moment. Another example I'd like to give of a client. This is a person who is an athlete. This is a person who is almost to the Olympics. I'm talking a month from the Olympics and on the national team. And about a month, four weeks to six weeks before the Olympics, this person got cut as one of the last two cuts to be made before the Olympic Games. And they had put their blood, their sweat, their tears, their heart, their soul into their whole life, into this for over four years, for their whole athletic career. And then they got cut. And it seemed like there was no upside. It was just awful misery. But I got to talk to this athlete about a while later, after another four years had gone by. And what they learned from that scenario was that had they not been cut, they never would have had what it really took to get to the Olympics. Because that act of being cut and that awful, devastating feeling brought them to a new level. They renewed themselves and went forward and worked their butt off in order to make it to the next national team for the next Olympics. And they ended up being a key player on the next Olympic team. Four years later. Had they not been devastated, had they not been cut, had that scenario not happened, they would not have grown in the massive way that they did, the massive growth that they needed to take the next step, to really be the player that couldn't get cut from the next team, a better team. Four years later, that team was better, and they didn't get cut, and they went on to serve that team. I can think of another scenario with a client who in their 40s, went through an awful divorce and lost most of their finances. They were devastated financially, and they had two children and this person was basically starting over in their 40s and they worked their butt off and they were able to. This person was able to grow their career and their family into exactly what they envisioned. And now looking back a couple decades later, they easily say that the financial devastation, the divorce they went through ended up being the best thing for their life because it enabled them to grow and learn and create more in their career. It enabled them to have a brand new family and, and be so close with their children that it never could have happened had that devastation not happened. And so there's always a flip side and sometimes it's hard to see. So I'm going to give you two questions that when you're in the moment and when it's horrible and when it's awful, that you can guide yourself to a place that you can see that there is another side. There's one coin, there's one hand, there's one world, and there's always another side. And these are the two questions. The number one question, and this might sound awful because when things are bad, we often feel guilty looking for the good. We feel like we're supposed to be feeling bad, and we probably are for whatever the situation. I wouldn't want to feel happy at a funeral. I don't want to choose to celebrate if I got cut from an Olympic team. I don't want to jump up and down for financial devastation. However, perspective is your pathway to growth. Staying in one viewpoint will never get you out of that situation. So the number one question is, could this be worse? It sounds awful, it sounds almost defeatist. But what it really does is have you become aware and gain perspective to see that what you're really going through isn't as awful as it maybe feels. There's probably a whole nother five levels of awful that it could be. And where you are right now, even though it feels horrible, might not be as bad as you think it is. So the question number one is could this be worse? And question number two is, what can I learn from this? Those are the two key questions. What can I learn from this? What is this here to teach me? What am I going to look back on and know that I gained from this whole scenario? How did this make me more resilient in my life? What did it offer my future? What can I learn from this? And if those two questions don't give you perspective, then time always will. Time is the thing that often allows the intensity, the sharpness to dull just a little bit so that you can gain perspective and you've got a little bit of cushion, distance from the event, from whatever's gone on, and then you can gain more perspective with time. So time can be that last thing. If you're not able to gain perspective from could it be worse? What can I learn from this? Then know that time will help. It will cushion the blow. That is how you can see the flip side. Because I promise you that if you look and if you get perspective and if you look for the flip side, it will be your path to growing beyond what the awful experience brought you. And that is your mindset Monday for today. This hopefully offers you a tool to use when things are low, when things are crap, when you've been dealt a blow, when you've had some loss, when you've had less, when you've had some sort of devastation. Then use this to gain some perspective to see the flip side and train your brain to look for the good. Not just the awful, but look for the good. Instead of staying in pain about our pain, which turns into suffering, look for the growth. Look for the lesson in the pain. I hope this serves you. It's a beautiful day outside. It's blue, it's sunny, it's incredibly bright. Let that guide you. Find your flip side. Get outdoors, take a deep breath, drink some water and crush your week. You've got this. Happy Monday everyone. Go for it. Live your life. Play big. Go for it all week long. Love to you. If you enjoy listening to the Empowered Team Podcast, you'll love being on the team. The Empowered Team runs year round. It is our group coaching and accountability program where we take mindset and physical performance concepts and break them down to usable action steps that optimize results. To join, email us@info powerconditioning.com with subject line team that's info powerconditioning.com we can't wait for you to be on the team.