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The Everyday Millionaire and Mindset Matters Podcast
Mindset Matters - Episode #157 - The Black Dot Effect: Transforming Negative Self-Talk into Positive Power
00:34:29
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- [00:04]
Patrick O.
Hi there and welcome to this episode of the Everyday Millionaire Mindset Matters podcast where I'm joined by my wife, Olympic mental performance coach Stephanie Hanlon. Franci. In these episodes, Stephanie and I have a conversation about the different aspects of what we refer to as Mindset Matters because we believe that for those who are awake, we are living in and through the most impactful time in history. Your view of the world is the filter for how you will experience the evolution and changing dynamics of it. Our intention is to provide you with ideas, nutritious food for thought, and some tools that you can use to help you in being your greatest self and living your best life. Listen in. Enjoy. Welcome to Mindset Matters. Stephanie, you're back.
- [00:54]
Stephanie Hanlon
I'm back. Hi, hon.
- [00:56]
Patrick O.
So Dallas, Texas, you were there?
- [01:01]
Stephanie Hanlon
Well, we were in Allen, Texas for Skate America 2024 Ice Academy, Montreal. We had six teams that were competing and we swept the podium again this year.
- [01:13]
Patrick O.
First, second, and third own the podium. One, two, three. Congratulations. We missed you. So that's also to say it's the reason that we did a throwback. We just couldn't make things work in terms of getting a recording done. That sometimes happens to do a little bit different stuff going forward. I want to do. We're going to do a live. Next time we can't record, we're going to go live. So get ready for that, folks. Yeah, no pressure, no pressure. Just going live anyways. So we got a few things to talk about today, not the least of which is, you know, we often have conversations about values and what they are and how do you own and be, you know, live a life of your values. So we've got a real cool document where I've really written the kind of the whole concept and the context for the seven areas of life and living your highest values. What does it mean? And it's actually a really cool working document that you can use to give yourself some guidance and it'll be up on the website soon. I don't know how quick, but just keep that in mind. Or you can email us ceoreincanada ceoincanada.com to get that white paper. It's a really great thorough read. It's free, by the way, so go ahead and you can do that CEO and canada.com and soon enough we'll have it on the Everyday Millionaire CA website. It may be there by the time this particular podcast comes up. So there you go. So what are we talking about today? It's always about mindset, but a little bit about negative self Talk negative how we look at life. You know, it's. It's a little bit of a combination of our negative self talk, I think, is the discussion as well as a little bit of the gap in the gain, I think if they kind of go together, I believe. So let's talk about it. So I'm going to give, like, I love these parables. I hope, you know, we get good feedback one way or the other. Parables give a context, right? The story. So the story goes this. The teacher stands up in front of his students and he holds up a white piece of paper with a black dot in the center of it. And he said to his students, he said, this piece of paper represents your life. What do you see? And all his students raised their hand and they all said the same thing. We see a black dot. We see a black dot. And he looks at it and he goes, isn't that interesting that this paper represents your life? You see the one imperfection in the paper, as opposed to seeing all of the space around the white or the black dot, all of the creativity, all the potential, all of the things that it could be in all of that space outside of the black dot, yet you see the small imperfection. And that, sadly, is both how we look at ourselves and how often we view others or view other scenarios. So I'll open with that short parable. What's your thoughts?
- [04:11]
Stephanie Hanlon
Well, I love that because I mean, as a. Basically as a mindset coach and, you know, really living into the world of performance psychology, that is probably one of the first and biggest obstacles I run into with my clients is that they cannot, for some reason focus on the possibilities, the white space. They focus on what's not going well. And I think that's also a function of some type of coaching. In the ice dance and figure skating world, we're always making corrections. We're always telling people what they're doing wrong, what they're doing wrong, what they're doing wrong, how to fix it, how to fix it. So it becomes a very loud, repetitive kind of negativity that can be perceived that way. But in the world of coaching, when we're pointing things out that are maybe not working, we have to find a way to do it in a way that shows how it works to move your life into the white space, into the possibility, into what is possible in terms of your life and your success. So I think there's a couple of different things I'd like to dig into there.
- [05:12]
Patrick O.
Okay, so what's the couple things? Do you want to name them? Or do you want me to comment? Or do you want me to comment.
- [05:18]
Stephanie Hanlon
First and then I'll dig into it?
- [05:19]
Patrick O.
Okay, Well, I think there's a couple things around that, you know, the negative self talk we've shared before and certainly there's a lot of actual science that shows it when they measure brain activity and all the rest of it. And then, and then really just when you observe yourself or others perhaps is that when we look at and listen, I am probably one of the most guilty in terms of negative self talk, looking at the black dot. Because for me there's always more, there's always something better that I could do a better way to be your best version of myself, more accomplishment. I mean, we've been going through these conversations you and I have just even recently is that you know, when is enough enough? And I don't have the answer to that. I don't know when enough is enough because I'm just finding myself going, okay, this is awesome. Gratitude, cool. But I know I could achieve more which then turns into some negative self talk where I'm not smart enough. You know, if I was smart enough, I'd have this problem figured out, whatever that negative self talk can be. So I'm looking at the black dot, which is a little bit different than the gap in the game because then you miss. I think, well, maybe it's the same thing. I'm working through this. The point is that that white space around is all of the possibilities, the creativity, then the negative side of things was when, and we've seen this as coaches and observing ourselves is first is the awareness of the negative self talk. Are you really aware that you're even trash talking yourself and what that translates to? We say often with our clients, you can't hide behind language. You can't hide behind words. You can lie. But when you're listening to people just in normal conversation, you can see who they are behind the words that they choose to use. If you're in that space of being negative, your outspoken word will show up as negative. It just will. You can't help it. You're not aware of it. You're just talking and that's what's showing up. And that's easy to pick up on. But the point is, is that creates a vibration which ultimately is what you attract and or pushes away. It either is going to attract or repel. You're either going to attract things of that vibration or you're going to repel things that can't step into that vibration. If that makes sense. So anyways, so the point of it, that is where I would kind of go with what we just talked about or what you just mentioned. But then the other side of that is that when we can bring our awareness to the negative self talk that we have, science shows that thinking positive is not even in the same realm of shifting to stopping this negative self talk. In other words, you find yourself trash talking yourself. Stop it out thought. Interrupt the thought. Do whatever you need to do. Call it out. Okay, I ran to run. Was that enough?
- [08:11]
Stephanie Hanlon
No, it's good. But it's funny because I love when you work through things in real time. Because it's true. I think we have to call each other on a lot of that stuff. I'm really a little bit more glass half full kind of person because I do see the impact of powerful negative thoughts and how many thoughts we have in a day. They say, the smart people out there that do all this research, they say human beings have about 60,000 thoughts a day. And 80% of those are generally considered negative.
- [08:40]
Patrick O.
Well. And 80% of them are repetitive. In other words, you're having the same out of those 60,000, 50,000 of them. It's just this loop that you go through. But there is something that, you know, I'm. When you said that, what showed up for me is I am definitely glass half full person when it comes to circumstances and when it comes to other people. When it comes to me. No, I this. But I epitomize the phrase that we are far harder on ourselves than anybody else's. Like, I represent that statement, clearly. I know I do. I put a lot of pressure on myself. I got to stop it.
- [09:22]
Stephanie Hanlon
Yeah, I do. And I think, what, 66 years later.
- [09:25]
Patrick O.
66 years later, I might get it figured out. Yeah. No, I don't.
- [09:29]
Stephanie Hanlon
I just. I think it's an excuse. I think it's. One of the BFLs in life is that there's a. You know, if I just am harder on myself or I think negative thoughts, or I find all the gaps instead of the gains, then I'm a. I'm a good person or I'm working hard. And I find that such a. I find that such a bfl. A big fat lie. You don't get more credit.
- [09:46]
Patrick O.
I piss you off all the time.
- [09:48]
Stephanie Hanlon
You do. Because one of the things I tell my clients, and you should listen to me in my meetings sometimes, because I'm amazing, is that there is no more. I actually had one of the groups that I work with that became their team Name, there is no more. This is it. And if you're not grateful and powerful in the fact that everything that we've created got us here, it's enough. Because there is no more. We don't have tomorrow guaranteed to us. We don't even have the next thought guaranteed to us. So for me to shift the mindset from that black dot onto the white piece of paper for people is really important. And a lot of that comes from getting grounded and centered into what you already have, what you've already created and how. And can you live in the discomfort of the ego going, I'm not good enough because it is just an ego play. And Back to the 60,000 thoughts. The smart people say high performers and people that are committed to a journey of excellence, they can get those thoughts down to about half. So high performers in my world, whether it's high net worth people, people that understand the power of thought process and the power of stepping into an environment where you're being supported is 30,000 thoughts a day. And my question was, where do those thoughts go? I don't get it. Where do they go? And you know where they go to is they go to focus. You can't generally shift out of the negative mindset, but what you can do is replace it. And when you replace it and say, okay, I know I'm going to be hard on myself, I know I'm going to be negative and not. But this lives into the world of paradox that I call the champions Paradox is the both. And yes, we can see what's going on in the world and where the crap is and where the hole is, but we can also see where the brilliance is. And that takes what I call the champions Paradox. Having both things, being able to exist at the same time is a really important hack or mindset trick. So living into the black dot or living to think that there's never enough is really detrimental to our whole conversation about mindset then and how it links to self worth.
- [11:45]
Patrick O.
I get it. And so I'm just being honest. Like I've been going through this whole thought process and we've had these conversations to some degree in the past. But I'll give you an example of some of my thought process. So don't be so hard on me, wife.
- [11:58]
Stephanie Hanlon
I'm not hard on you. I'm just getting tired of having to battle your mindset sometimes.
- [12:04]
Patrick O.
Okay, just settle down. So interesting in my workout today. So today was leg day. So what I don't talk about, but I don't know if I've shared it, but. So three years ago I woke up with a compressed disc. Weirdest thing ever. Ultimately, I had a compressed disc, really shut my legs down. Didn't mess my back up, my back is fine, but it really shut my legs down. So for the longest time, even walking and everything else, balance and leg strength. And so over that three year period of time, there's, I don't want to call it atrophy, but you don't have as much muscle. Of course, in, I didn't have as much muscle in my leg, I couldn't use them the way I was just happy to be able to stand on one leg at one point. And so the, the, the reason I share that is now I've been training really quite consistently and, and you know, over the past year and as Juan and I've been working through and doing some leg days. Today is a perfect example. So today was leg day and, and we were doing some pistol squats, assisted, but pistol squats. And, and I actually did a, did them and they were shaky and they weren't weighted and there was all the rest of it. And so I owned that. I went, wow, what a difference this year has made in terms of just regaining and refiring the muscle strength. But I was really happy with that. But I barely finished the third set or fourth set, whatever it was. And you know what I said to Juan? I go, dude, I should have videoed this so that I can look at it in a year from now and see how far I've come, right? Because immediately I went, okay, I got this, I can do more. Like it's immediately I went there. So isn't that interesting? I don't know if that's a negative thought. I don't hold that as a negative. I was, I was very grateful and quite proud of myself that I'd come to that. Although I was kind of chuckling at myself, is that, gosh, you know, I was injured, so I'm struggling with that injury.
- [14:03]
Stephanie Hanlon
But, well, the need to do more is really interesting because when you get it from on, on the gut level is that what you've done is enough and seeing how far you've come, you can actually create the next thought. Instead of what it sounds like you do is you just keep carrying that same thought. It was great. I was grateful. I think it was really good. But it's not enough. It's like it's one big long sentence instead of bringing it to a close and go, wow, that was really amazing. I wonder what I can do next. So it's really in how we frame the mindset. And I look at the champion athletes that I work with, they live within a four year quadrennial and they're not the same people at the end of the quad as they go into Olympics as they were when they started. They're not, they've grown. But what happens is we normalize things. So when we normalize where we are as human beings, it's like, well, I've always been like this. I've always been an Olympic champion. Well, actually no, you haven't. What you have done is done the work created the intention, you know, created the plan, work backwards from an outcome. But those happen in sections. And I think that's what happens is we just throw all of our intentions and goals into one pot or one workout and go, well, that was good, but it wasn't quite enough. And so that, so what I want to bring it back down to is that mindset is damaging to our self worth, damaging to what we call our inspiration or our motivation. Very difficult. You're a different, you have a different mindset. You, you're very committed to your health and wellness right now and that's amazing. But what happens is if you keep bringing in the not enough mindset, eventually that's going to wear out as well. And I'm not talking to you, hun, I'm talking to hopefully people that are listening to us. Is that what I'm really seeing in the world right now of high performance and even just people that want to have one step, better life than they maybe had yesterday is that we're being straddled with all the things that are going wrong. We're straddled with, you know, the economy and the negativity and the weather and the climate and the gender issues and all the things that are distracting us from actually just calming the F down and calming the thoughts down into one or two really powerful. Whether it's a mantra or some people call them affirmations or what is it that you're going to do so that you train your mindset that says this is enough today. I have zero problem sleeping at night. And sometimes, you know, we get up in the morning and you say, you know, I just couldn't shut my brain off last night. I have zero problem with that because. And when I work on, in the context of thinking, understanding how the brain works in chunks is that I have to bring the chunk to a close before I can go to bed. Whether it's through a book or a show or a Meditation or a bath, what is it that I do that brings my day to a close? And I think for many people, we just keep carrying on this treadmill of going forward, going forward, going forward, and not even realizing that the self talk that we have is like this driver that's pushing us for more, for more, for more. And it may sound paradoxical and not even real, but with my clients, especially the world class athletes, we have to teach them to slow down in order to speed up.
- [17:10]
Patrick O.
Well, yeah, and in my own defense, not that I have to defend myself, but I want you to carry on my thought process now that you've said that, all that, I get it. But there is, you know, there, there are moments along the way since that injury. So for, you know, as you know, you know, one of the things that I and I share this with, you know, many men primarily, and that is that, you know, you need to be able to put your socks on standing up. That's it. You got to be able to stand on one foot, reach down, put your sock on, even put your shoe on, tie it up. If you want to chest yourself like you, you want to challenge yourself, can you put your socks on standing up? And that has been, for me, that has been something that I just do it is what I do it. I put my socks on standing up. When I had that back injury, I went through a period of time where balancing on one foot was a huge challenge, like, really, really difficult. It took me a year to get back to where I could kind of steady myself to do it. It was actually two years before I was really comfortable with doing it again. And now this year it's like just back to the good old put them on, do whatever I want on one foot, have the balance. So along the way, I was in my own mind celebrating and noticing that there was improvement. I was always wishing there would be more. And it is a slow journey from a compressed disc. I had no idea. But anyways, so it's all to say this is that I do make a mental note and go, yes, that was great. But I did notice today that I immediately went and I did say to my trainer, to Juan, I said, this was fricking awesome. Like, this was really good. And we had done this particular workout and it was really great. But it was like within a minute I'm going, oh, I should have measured. Now I want to be able to measure this. Like, I want to be able to.
- [18:59]
Stephanie Hanlon
You know, that's also the mindset of a champion, right?
- [19:03]
Patrick O.
I don't know. I'M not.
- [19:04]
Stephanie Hanlon
Yeah.
- [19:04]
Patrick O.
I'm not a champion. I'm not a champion. What are you talking about?
- [19:08]
Stephanie Hanlon
Okay, now, cowboy. I knew.
- [19:12]
Patrick O.
I just totally set myself up.
- [19:15]
Stephanie Hanlon
Oh, my God. This is my.
- [19:17]
Patrick O.
I don't know why I said that to you. No, I take it back. I take it back.
- [19:21]
Stephanie Hanlon
Too late. You can't say that right. Here we are dealing with people that we won't understand. The championship. You're like, I'm not a champ. What am I?
- [19:30]
Patrick O.
Hilarious? Okay, okay, okay.
- [19:32]
Stephanie Hanlon
You're not funny. Stop talking.
- [19:34]
Patrick O.
It's not funny. It's not funny.
- [19:36]
Stephanie Hanlon
Stop talking.
- [19:38]
Patrick O.
For those of you who are not watching on video, then you don't appreciate it. Okay, so where do we want to go with this particular conversation? When we look at that whole concept and context is that instead of looking at the black dot, we do really have to look at all of the great things that are happening in our life. This goes back to even the seven areas of life and values. That white paper that I was talking about earlier when we first fired up the show is that when we look at seven areas of life and we continue to remind people, is that if you want to just. If you're having a shitty day, it's really great to break it down and go, okay, what was shitty about my day? Well, was it in relationship? Was it in business? Was it something, you know, what area of life? Because you've still got six areas of life. Was it shitty in all areas of your life? You know, and. Or, you know, because you can even have a really bad health day or a bad health week, or you can be going, maybe you got whatever version of a flu or a cold or whatever, and your health is shutting you down. Maybe you have a compressed disc that was really, really dramatic for me, and it was painful and it was inconvenient and all of it, and it really bummed me out. But the reality of it is, while I was having all of that go on, I had other areas of my life that were just fine. You know, the business carried on. My relationship with you was awesome. We, like, we, you know, we weren't pressed financially, so there was still a lot of things that were happening through that period of time that were very, very positive. And so this isn't necessarily a gap and a gain conversation, although I think it all wraps around that same thought process, which is to acknowledge where you are in the negative self talk and the berating yourself and shifting and being aware of it so that you can stop that thought. When I'd say stuff out loud. You remember years ago when I'd say stuff out loud, you know, when I was still your favorite Neanderthal, and I'd say things out loud, you'd go, well, out thought, stop outside. Right. Like you. You'd interrupt the thought pattern.
- [21:43]
Stephanie Hanlon
I don't even allow it. I don't allow it in my consciousness.
- [21:46]
Patrick O.
Yeah.
- [21:47]
Stephanie Hanlon
That level of negativity, I just. I just refuse. And it's a discipline that I've had to come up with. Like, as disciplined as you are around your workouts and your physicality, my mental toughness, you know, my. My certainty can squish anybody's doubt when it comes to mindset. And when I see the power of just how much I can create. We can create when we are aligned in our mindset. We can make things happen like that. And I think the struggle or the ego that kicks in when we're committed to our negative, you know, downward spirals is extremely heavy. Inertia and gravity, you know, they're a real thing when it comes to mindset. And if you allow yourself to keep going down those paths, it's really difficult. And I think for me, when I realized that and I started seeing it manifest itself all over, like, all over just with. Not just with us, but with our clients, with our friends, I actually have noticed that even the people that we hang out with have a much more clear and powerful positive mindset than the people that we used to hang out with. And I don't know if that's an evolution thing or just what I'm not tolerating anymore. But even when we have people over or dinner parties, I never. And I can't say never, because I will say don't say never or always. But I rarely find myself in a conversation that people are gossiping in or talking negativity or they're talking trash about, you know, the economy or the politics or whatever. I think we all know what's going on, and we can have a conversation, but it doesn't have to be grounded in how shitty things are and how it's not working and how I'm a victim to this and a victim to that. That's where we. I really get assertive, as you can tell, that when it comes to being responsible for the words you speak, we responsible for the thoughts. Thoughts become things. I learned that from Wayne Dyer back in the Louise heydays. When I was in my heydays. That's funny, when I was in my early 20s, is that thoughts become things. And if we're not being responsible for the thoughts, even the thought, the first thought I have in the morning, I don't get out of bed until I can actually find three or four things that I'm grateful for in the morning and that I've done my meditation. I, I then will enter the world with the mindset that what's possible today and how is the universe working for me, not against me. And I think that's, you know, really important. And it's not rose colored glasses. It's a discipline.
- [24:01]
Patrick O.
There's. Well, I don't get, I'm the same way. I don't get out of bed. I just don't roll out of bed and get at it. I literally lay in bed and awake. As you know, I'm an early riser and I look forward to waking up in the morning early and getting my day started. It's a big part of just what, how I love my day. I love my morning time. And I don't even book meetings until, if I can avoid it, I don't book meetings before 9am and you know, so if I'm up at 5, those four hours are mine. And as you know, I rarely am interrupted. That gets to be me. Do what I want to do. But back to my dogs.
- [24:40]
Stephanie Hanlon
Except by the dogs.
- [24:42]
Patrick O.
And no doubt Rango and Echo, they're there for me. They're there for me all the time. But back to the physicality part of it. You know, the physicality for me is so important on the mindset side of it. I, and this is so difficult sometimes to even maintain that because it is a vicious cycle. If I stop working out or make excuses for not working out or not being physical. That physicality as you have shared or you've witnessed many times over the years, I don't care if it's a workout or it's outside me getting out there and sweating and getting dirty or whatever that might be, that physicality for me is something I recognize that actually puts me in a better mood in general. And so that's an important part of what keeps me going. And it gives me the opportunity, it clears my mind, it gives me time to do what my brain seems to want to do, which is process and do all the things that it does. But ultimately, if I don't get that physicality, I can literally feel myself sliding downhill in terms of my overall mood and my overall conversations with myself. It is a tough switch to flip though, and, but this goes back to, we've had conversations in the past about discipline, but it also comes back to the environment that I've created for myself or we've created for ourselves in terms of systems and how we can eliminate the excuses. So it isn't even about habits and discipline. It's in your face, like it makes it easier. And so that's all I got to say about that. But it is really mentally understanding and consciously being aware of how are you setting yourself up to succeed versus how are you setting yourself up to not succeed or be challenged or make it harder. And so right now, part of the system in terms of my physicality, in terms of what we do is making it easy. You know, so that all of the hard excuses or all of the excuses of being hard or it's inconvenient or it's, you know, take as many of those off the table as you can and the next thing you know, you're working out on a regular basis. You're mentally or. For me, in the physicality of it, I have lots of physical things that I get done on the property, for example, I get distracted by the dogs and get to train or hang out or go for a walk with dogs. But that's all comes back to looking after my mental state. That's the blank piece of paper around the dot.
- [27:12]
Stephanie Hanlon
Yeah. 100. And I think for, for many of us, and I don't, I think what we forget sometimes is to really focus on what stage we're at, what era we're at in our own lives. If I, you know, speaking to a young mother, she's focused on her children, you know, focus on making sure that they're fed well and they get lots of exercise and they're, you know, they've got good, you know, good activities etc, and sometimes they put their own health or well being or their fitness aside for that. But then when there's ready for that, then there's the shift into maybe, okay, I can put the attention back on me. And what I'm seeing right now is some of those people, and especially the moms that I'm working with, have a hard time taking their energy off of the kids or the, the family or the husband or whatever that they've had their focus on for the first 10, 12 years of their children's lives. And I think being able to, being able to distinguish that we do have separate needs and values in all seven areas of our lives. And sometimes for you, physical is up right now. You know, for me, spiritual and financial is up right now. So we're driven in two different ways. I still get my walks in, I'm still Doing what I need to do to get my muscle mass back happening, but it's not my main driver. And I think what happens is until we can identify through that filter what it is that's up for us, then we then continue to beat ourselves up. And to have to think that we have to spin all seven plates at the same time is exhausting. And I think, you know, what I was listening to this morning with some podcasts and really looking into how I wanted to sort of approach this podcast is that there's people out there who are very much aware that the positive versus negative self talk that we have is so personal. And sometimes we think we are not getting the results that we want because we're not working hard enough. And to me, that's another big fat lie, is that we don't have to work any harder. Sometimes we just have to be 100% responsible for the thoughts that we're thinking. And when that's connected to a low self worth and lack of confidence or you're not getting the results that you want. You know, this morning we talked about, we had a little win today. You know, some of our stocks went up or whatever. And so finding those wins is also a way to gently begin to shift your mindset. And I remember back when I was really hard on myself and somebody said to me, you know, would you talk to your best friend that way? The way that you talk to yourself? I'm like, no, I wouldn't even talk to anybody like that. And they said, well, how dare you? You know, So I started changing how I spoke to myself. And sometimes in the morning when I'm not feeling so awesome or beautiful or whatever, I'll just look in the mirror and go, hey, hey, girlfriend, how you doing today? So I open up with, with a, hey, girlfriend, how you doing?
- [29:50]
Patrick O.
You're always beautiful to me. You know, there's an interesting part of it that I think that as we wind this down, you know, I'll leave this kind of out there. And I know that for me. So the physicality of me impacts all areas of my life. And because it does affect me mentally and emotionally, which then goes on to say, how do I show up for business? How do I show up when I'm speaking? How do I show up when I'm interviewing a guest on the Everyday Millionaire? It affects a lot of things. So I know that it's. It's just that ripple effect and I think linear. So it's. That's how I put it all together. I'm not saying it's right. That's just how I see it. But the kiss of death for me, and I see this and I say the kiss of death for me is probably extreme, but I'm saying it for many, which is one of the biggest issues I see today, is the kiss of death being comparison. And with the world of social media, the world of influencers, the world of what's going on, these snapshot moments of time, these staged, you know, 30 second snippets, the minute you start comparing yourself, you're in trouble. And I'll share one quick story with you, one conversation with our listeners as well, is that I'm going through this kind of quasi. What feels like a shift for me at 66 years old. I mean, gosh, I don't feel 66. I guess if this is 66, that's cool. I don't know what 66 is supposed to feel like. I just know how I feel and I feel like, gosh, you know, I can do this for 100 years. The point is, is that if I. And as we, you know, see friends talk to friends, we know many who are our age and they're retired and they're, you know, they're kind of cruising along and I go, that's. I don't know, it, it, it makes me feel like, oh, that's what I should be doing. Or like I see that, the mental conversation, and I'm going, no way, I'm not interested in that. I don't even like golf. And yeah, we'll play pickleball because it's kind of okay. There's a, there's a more physical activity in pickleball, you know, but like, there's no part of me that wants to go beat a ball around anywhere. And travel's cool, but, you know, you and I both done a lot of travel, you far more than I have. But, you know, getting on airplanes and standing in lineups at security does not appeal to me. Being on airplanes just is not a thing. And so I have to be just true to myself. But as soon as I compare myself to somebody else, I'm going, oh, geez, maybe we should be going to Europe and hanging out for a month. And it's just not where I'm at. So my point of all of that is that's also part of the black dot on the paper. And the black dot becomes the comparison that we're making to others who seem to have it all figured out. And the truth is, we know they don't. Those good friends that have in fact, slowed down and. Or quasi retired. And they got shit going on too. So it's not. It's not like this perfect world, but comparison, bad news. Quit it.
- [32:50]
Stephanie Hanlon
I think my ego must be way too big because I really don't look at anybody's life and think it's better than ours, you know, And I really don't. And I know that may sound weird, but I have zero need to compare, you know? And I think what I've realized is that, you know, back to the being the best in the world at something, the way I can navigate that whole conversation is that there is no other Stephanie Hanlon. There's no other Patrick Francis. So how is it that we dare to think that we can be better than someone else if we're not focused on being our best self? So I'm just the best Stephanie Hanlon I know how to be, and that would make me the best in the world at that.
- [33:25]
Patrick O.
And this is the best Mindset Matters podcast in the world because it's the only one. It's the only one. Okay, any final words before we sign off?
- [33:36]
Stephanie Hanlon
Oh, no. That was fun.
- [33:37]
Patrick O.
Okay, thanks, everybody. Ceoraincanada.com and oh, by the way, one final request. Reviews. We need some reviews. So reviews, likes, stars, all those things. Stephanie, thanks.
- [33:51]
Stephanie Hanlon
That was fun.
- [33:53]
Patrick O.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening. If you found value in the podcast, please take the time to rate and review and share with others. Share with your friends, as it is my goal to always improve and to provide the highest value for you, the listener. If you have any comments, suggestions, or questions you'd like answered, please email me@ceooncanada.com that's ceocanada.com I look forward to hearing from you. And until next time, Patrick O.