In this solo episode of the Own It Podcast, host Nicole Hollar explores how perception shapes our experience of challenges and how reframing setbacks can reveal hidden opportunities. She begins by introducing predictive processing—the brain’s tendency to anticipate outcomes and act on those expectations—citing a 1980 study where participants wore facial scars to examine social reactions. Nicole then shares a personal story of hydrolocking her car’s engine in South Florida, describing the immediate technical mistake (trying to restart a water‑filled engine) and the subsequent week‑long loss of her vehicle. The incident forced her to bike to work, exposing her to “secret times of day” in nature, deepening friendships, and highlighting the support network she hadn’t realized she had. She connects this to a broader lesson about perception: the same event can be seen as a disaster or as a catalyst for positive change. Nicole next reflects on the COVID‑19 pandemic, explaining how the crisis pushed her to pivot her nutrition seminar into an online course, develop at‑home workout programs, and adopt virtual coaching tools like Zoom. She acknowledges the widespread suffering caused by the pandemic but emphasizes the importance of asking oneself what personal resources or new directions can emerge from such upheaval. She also revisits a past breakup, describing how she used the newfound freedom to take a solo vacation, focus on fitness photography, and grow her business—again illustrating the power of shifting perception. A central metaphor is her lawn: weeds represent unwanted thoughts or beliefs. She argues that one can either obsess over individual weeds or appreciate the overall health of the lawn, choosing where to focus attention. This metaphor reinforces her message that we can decide whether to dwell on obstacles or see the broader, positive landscape. The episode concludes with a call to action, inviting listeners to explore her coaching services, fitness programs, and speaking workshops via her website and social media.
Chapters
Welcome to the Own It Podcast with me, Nicole Hollar, where we're going to talk about stuff to help you get out of your way, take charge of your life, and, well, other stuff too. Hey guys, welcome to another episode of the Own It Podcast with me, Nicole Hollar. You know, I've been talking quite a bit about perception with people recently. I know I did a podcast recently about predictive processing, which is basically when we Create an experience of how something was going to go in advance of the actual experience. And then we act according to how we believe the experience was going to go. And I talked all about a study done in 1980 where scars were applied to people's faces. They were sent out into the world to talk to people, and then they asked how they felt about those interactions. And, uh, I would encourage you to go ahead and find that, that story. It's about predictive processing. It was a couple of weeks ago. I don't want to give away the details. When it comes to perception, it's not just about how we interact with people around us, but also about, you know, what is our perception of a situation at any time. And I remember, uh, years ago, it was, you know, I live in South Florida, so it gets pretty rainy here sometimes. In fact, I've seen a lot of people lose their cars, and I happen to be one of those people a number of years ago. My engine hydrolocked, meaning I sucked water into the intake. So I've learned a lot since then of what to do in the event you do end up in unusually deep water suddenly, which by the way, the answer is turn your car off. Do not keep trying to turn over the car and suck more water into your intake. The best thing you could do is just turn it off. So that's a sidebar. Crawl out your window if you have to, if it's not raining, which in my case it wasn't. I probably could have. Anyway, so I'm driving through some water. It's deep, but I'm like, I can make it. I've got 20 more feet. It's deep enough. I can still make it. But I make this turn onto a road and all of a sudden the road dipped down and I end up in much deeper water than, than I had been in, like probably 5 or so inches, which is pretty significant when the water was already pretty high. And I did all the things I just explained to you you shouldn't do. And for about 10 feet, it's stalling. I'm turning it over. I'm, you know, I'm sucking in as much water into the engine's intake as I can. And finally, I just hydrolocked the engine. So it died. Great. Now what you need to know at this point is I'm in this time in my life and I'm like, man, I really feel like I'm really there for my friends. And I, I, I reach out to people a lot cuz it's, Part of my nature. And you're like, do I have that same support system? Like if, if I really needed it or in general, you know, people are pretty hands-off with me and I didn't know. So I always joke that the universe provides your God, your spirit, your creator, whatever it is, will provide for you to learn the answers. So I hydrolocked my engine and I call a friend and he was there within 10 minutes and we pushed the car into A parking lot right there because I wanted to get out of the road. So there's friend number 1 who came through almost instantly. And now I didn't have my car for weeks. I'm not going to pretend it didn't suck, but it is all about perception. It did, but it is what it was. You know, what it did was I lived pretty close to work, so I would ride my bike, which I hadn't really been doing that much, and I love these. I call it the secret times of day. You know, I, I get to work in the 4 or 5 o'clock hour. So I'm riding my bike and it's like, there's nobody on the road really, but you know, you and a possum, maybe a couple cars. And so I really got to enjoy that, the occasional, the bird that was starting to chirp in the morning. It was just this sort of secret time of day in the morning and the night. So it provided me this opportunity to sort of commune with nature again. So I, I was like, thank you. You know, like if, if I had my car still, I wouldn't be doing that. Again, I'm not saying it wasn't inconvenient because it certainly was, but I was able to navigate it and deal with it. And I'm really grateful for that. Also, the rains held out for me in the whole time that I was without the car, which was about 4 weeks because they kept sending the wrong engine. So more and more people, I would tell these stories to, they're like, man, that sucks. You know, you should call them and yell at them and this and this. And I'm like, take it easy. I'm not denying that the experience isn't more challenging, that I've got to jump through a few more hoops. If I did want to bring something heavy, I remember getting a projector for an organization I was volunteering for. I had to borrow a friend's car. But look at that. Like, I had friends who were letting me borrow their car. I had friends offering to take me to work at obscene hours of the morning. I mean, people were really showing up for me. And I wouldn't have known that if I wasn't inconvenienced by the car situation. But I got to be active again. I got to ride my bike around. I went to the grocery store more often than not because I only brought a few groceries at a time. And for those friends who know me, my bike looks more like a, you know, a commuter bike. I had like panniers on the sides, a thing in the back, so I could actually carry quite a bit of stuff. But it was all about perception because, I mean, I would tell people that I lost my engine, like I said, and they would get all sorts of irritated and mad on my behalf. And I'm like, settle down. It's okay. I get it. But look at all these great things that have come of it for me. And I truly felt that way. I was in this really amazing space where I could welcome even some of the challenges as positives. Even COVID. I know a lot of you guys probably had some really shitty things happen during COVID And COVID had its challenges for me as well, you know, personally or professionally. And I wasn't seeing that many people, but you know what I did? I spent a lot more time on my computer. I turned my nutrition seminar into a course. I made at-home workout programs for people. I started to use Zoom and other virtual tools in order to work with clients. Both coaching as well as fitness. None of that would have happened if it wasn't for COVID. Even in my office where I have my desk, I have my computer on a stand now with a Bluetooth keyboard, which I never had before. That was almost instantaneous because I realized I'm not used to sitting for this many hours at a time, especially behind, you know, a desk. So I'm kind of grateful for the things that I was able to take away from COVID And again, that's not denying that there were a lot of shitty things. A lot of people got really sick. Many people died. I'm not denouncing that at all. But I'm saying, what is it in your own personal circumstances of a scenario? How are you looking at it? Are you looking at all the stuff that's been taken from you or dumped on you? Or are you willing to see the other things that are open and available to you as a result of it? Or that you can learn to pivot and adapt, be more resourceful, find different resources. You know, after my breakup over, you know, a decade ago, my ego was pretty wrecked, as is common, right? But when I finally let go of that, I was like, look, I'm going to go on my first solo vacation. I didn't have anybody else to consider, think about, or worry about. I didn't have to worry about You know, managing a relationship. I fully focused on taking care of me. I ended up doing fitness photos. I did so many things that were me positive. My business amplified. I took care of my studio differently. I decided to go, well, what is it that I can do in this space now that I wasn't able to do before? And not because I couldn't necessarily. But because my focus wasn't there. Sometimes life really comes down to perception, and you've probably heard me, uh, I love to use my metaphor about my lawn. I have a nice lawn, and I like to credit, you know, maybe when we think about how we have unconscious programmings and beliefs, some aren't good anymore, which is why in Breakthrough Coaching we get rid of those to help to implement better and newer strategies that still work for you. And some are great, right? Like, I like watching television shows that are kind of of the learning nature with people like friends or loved ones, because it was a nice warm memory of things I did with my grandparents. My grandfather used to pick sticks up in the lawn. He was always messing with it. Well, I do something similar, so I'm not going to complain about that. But it is like weeds. There's going to be weeds in my lawn. My front yard is pretty weed-free, but my backyard has some weeds. And I get to choose, do I want to stare at the lawn and hyper obsess about a weed? Or do I want to look, you know what, I got a pretty good lawn. And then if I do choose to look at the lawn and see a weed, am I able to let it go or can I deal with it at the time? If I know I'm not going to be able to let it go or deal with it at the time, I'm not even going to look for it. I'm just going to look at the lawn as its whole landscape and go, it's a pretty good lawn. I hope that metaphor works for you because it, it does for me by way of it really is about what we focus on. If you don't want to see the weeds, don't look for them. You truly get to choose. You can focus on how sucky it was that I had to go through the whole thing and my hydrolocked car and I went through insurance and blah, blah, blah, or see the opportunities that it provided for me instead. So when you are going through a thing, Whatever the thing is, try to step out of the picture for a minute and go, what is this providing me? What can I learn from it? What is it opening space in room for? Did you have a falling out with your best friend? Why was it your best friend anyway? Was he or she truly the person who was your best friend, or were they just a placeholder for so long that they were just your best friend? Or has it now given you room to go, huh. Were our values and beliefs and where we were in our life still aligned? Is it opening your eyes, your ears, your space, your energy for something else? Is it going to give you room to, you know, Fridays we always used to do this thing together. Well, now Friday I'm going to go try this other thing, which I wanted, which we never did when we were always hanging out. That could be a romantic partner too, whomever. So think about your perceptions. Consider how You're seeing some of the stuff that is a roadblock or a bump in the road or an obstacle and decide if it really is, or if it's opening your eyes to another possibility. I'm going to leave that for today. Remember, this is your time. And as always, you can find me on most social media at Nicole Hollar Coaching. And of course, my website, nicoleholler.com, where you can check out more about breakthrough coaching. fitness, booking me for speaking workshops, as well as request podcast topics. I hope you have a great day.
