We have been raised to always follow predetermined patterns set by those who came before us, but the patterns that have led them to where they are aren’t exactly what we need to get to where we want to be. Adele Spraggon’s expertise is in changing these operating instructions and patterns to allow for personal empowerment and development. In this conversation with Rodney Flowers, she gives a sneak peek of what her book, Shift: 4 Steps to Personal Empowerment, can do for you in your journey. Adele dives into the behaviors of the human brain when it comes to creating patterns and shares how we can use that to our advantage in order to constantly improve and develop. Learn all about the message that she wants to spread and understand how working on your patterns can change the world for the better.
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Listen to the podcast here:
Making The Mindset Shift: Rewiring The Human Brain For Personal Empowerment With Adele Spraggon
As always, I’m excited about this show. I have a behavioral change expert with me. She’s an award-winning author of Shift: 4 Steps to Personal Empowerment. She’s also an International Speaker. Miss Adele Spraggon is with me and we are going to discuss her book. I know many of you can use some personal empowerment given the circumstances that we are facing. It’s always a good time for personal empowerment. We always want to empower ourselves, better ourselves, take ourselves to higher levels of achievement, higher levels of reaching goals and being the best versions of ourselves. The question is, “How do we do that? How do we make that shift?” I’m happy to say that we have an expert here with me to help us make that shift. Without further ado, let’s welcome to the show, Adele.
Thank you, Rodney. It’s wonderful to be here. I’m super excited.
It’s great to have you here. I love the title of your book, by the way, Shift: 4 Steps to Personal Empowerment. I can’t wait to dive into that and know what that’s all about. First of all, how are you? How are things going for you?
I’m wonderful. I’m good. It’s an exciting time to be alive. We are in many different changes, aren’t we? There are so much going on and there are many opportunities that come out of major problems.
What is the story behind Shift? What caused you to write a book and deliver a book to the public in a time of pandemic called Shift? What’s that all about?
Interesting story, Rodney. I have been in the personal development industry or space for 30 years. About ten years into working with my clients and on myself to personally improve and feel personally empowered, I realized that the majority of us weren’t reaching the goals that we were setting. Even though we were following all the so-called traditional instructions like, “Set the right goal, create the right mindset and understand the steps you need to take to get to your goal,” many people that I was training were still struggling to make it and to feel good enough. I thought, “It can’t be us. It can’t be what we are doing. It has to be the operating instructions that we are using.”
At that point, I decided I was going to go to university. I wanted to study how the human brain thinks and how we make decisions so that I could understand why many of us were putting so much effort and not achieving. I went to school to study that. It took me about ten years and I ended up with my Master’s in Humanities. I came out realizing, “Now I get it. We are using the wrong operating instructions. We have all been taught to follow the wrong path. It’s creating a lot of effort and a lot of disappointment in many cases.” I created a four-step technique and it’s all in the book Shift: 4 Steps to Personal Empowerment, which creates new operating instructions which lead us to achieve our goals.
We are using the wrong operating instructions. We've all been taught to follow the wrong path and it's creating a lot of wasted effort and disappointment. Click To TweetYou said we have been operating under the wrong operating instructions. What do you mean by that? Could you elaborate on that for us a little?
There is an author, Jeremy Lent, and he calls it The Patterning Instinct. It is a good name for it. It said, “Our brain is born to create patterns.” Unlike other animals that are born intuitively knowing what to do, human beings don’t. We have to figure it all out. What our brain does is creates patterns. It structures the world inside a lot of meaning that doesn’t exist. It links together different meanings with different things. We are born doing this. They have proven that a child will come out of the womb already understanding the linguistic patterns of their mother’s tongue. They are listening for those patterns and then when we are born, we see the world through patterns.
You will notice this. We see elephants and clouds. We see things in our stucco ceiling that don’t exist. Those are visual patterns that we create but we also create patterns of meaning and patterns of thinking. If those patterns work, then that’s great. We will take the necessary actions to get to our goal because under every action, we take the runs in pattern in the brain. If that patterning doesn’t work for some reason, it’s off. We end up with those little voices in our head that say we are not good enough. The problem with the way our brain perceives patterns is it thinks they are real. Once we created that meaning, we get caught up in it. We get trapped inside that meaning, and then we run off and fix it.
That is where the real problem comes in.
Once we think that we have a problem, now we have to fix it. We are looking out there and we are saying, “The world is broken, the situation is broken or worse, I’m broken.” We start trying to fix all of this stuff. If we know, “My brain is creating a pattern and that pattern isn’t working. It’s not taking me in the direction that I want to go,” now we can start working on the right thing and change that underlying pattern.
How do we get to a place of awareness that what is causing us not to experience the results we want is an indication that the pattern isn’t working? There are a lot of variables that come into play when it comes to achieving goals, being the best version of yourself and reaching your full potential. You know this. Many different variables come into play. How can we get to a place where we can say, “This is the focus area that I need to work on?”
“This is the pattern that isn’t working for me.” Is that what you mean?
Shift: 4 Steps to Personal Empowerment
Yes.
Probably one of the trickiest steps is to identify what isn’t working because most of the time, we are trying to fix the wrong thing. Here is a trick. If you receive any message in any form that says, “There is something wrong,” whether that be an internal conflict, an emotion that’s not working, anger, upset, sadness, grief, guilt or shame, that’s an internal or an external conflict. Like in a relationship, there is tension out there. The first place to start is with the pattern.
The first place to ask yourself is, “I must have a pattern that is not working to be causing that conflict.” The trick is let’s start fixing it and start removing the pattern because once you do that, our brain has what is called plasticity, which means that it’s constantly rewiring itself. The problem is, it keeps rewiring itself based on the same flow of those underlying patterns. If we can remove the underlying pattern, then the brain will naturally rewire, then it will cause effective actions based on that new wiring.
This pattern also includes thought patterns, ways of thinking and feeling about ourselves, feeling about what’s happening out there, identity, potentiality and all of those things that are internal. No one can see the battle with these things but yet, it may appear that we have it together on the outside. We are battling it on the inside and screaming for help but then not knowing how to quiet that down and what to listen to.
I get both sides of this. I have experienced what you were saying where you feel you were not good enough or you feel you were going to fall short. It’s not going to happen for you because of some limitation or something like background or whatever is not set aside. Those thoughts that come up that prevent us from truly believing we can accomplish something. There is that other voice that is cheering you on and telling you, “This is for you. You can do this. You are more than what you are giving yourself credit for.” It’s believing in that before you get the thing that allows you to get the thing, which is tricky.
A lot of times, we need the validation of doing something before we believe that we can do it but it doesn’t work that way. The bigger goal is you have to believe it before you do it. You have these opposing feelings, emotions and thoughts, which one you listen to could be tricky. You have many thoughts in a day. You have over 60,000-some thoughts in a day. In some areas, you may feel good and confident. You conquered that thought about yourself, whether it be how you look or your body. When it comes to finances or studying business, there’s this lack of confidence or these thought patterns that are ruling the day. I wanted to go over that to get people in detail and clear about what it is that what we are talking about here. How do we begin to make that shift to, if that is the answer, dismissing those patterns, owning and developing or creating patterns that serve us more powerfully?
We have those two voices inside of ourselves, and both of them are patterns. One works and one doesn’t. If we can start looking at it like that, then for those voices that don’t work, what I suggest to everybody is to start to see those as a messenger. It’s a messenger delivered by your pattern box by your unconscious that is trying to tell you that the pattern that you are running isn’t working. That’s all it is.
We have two voices inside of ourselves and both are patterns, but only one of them works. Click To TweetAnytime we fall down or get a message that there is something wrong or we beat ourselves up, it’s simply a messenger saying, “Knock-knock. This pattern won’t take you to your goal. It’s time to remove the pattern and create a new one so that you can get to the goal.” As we start to listen in that way, life truly becomes effortless. I like to say you step out of one identity into another identity. An identity in which you are feeling unconfident into one in which, “I can do this.” It’s natural and innate. It feels like, “Come on. You’ve got a cheering squad in me. Just go.” It’s beautiful.
It’s funny you say that because when I was at the heart of trying to recover from this accident that I suffered, one of the things I would tell myself about feelings of doubt, insignificance and defeat is like, “Feeling this way doesn’t serve you.” Given where it is that you want to go if you feel this way, this doesn’t help you get there. It hinders the process. If you are feeling this way, you are not empowered. You are not in a state of mind that’s going to be conducive to getting where you want to go.
Another thing is who you want to be in this. As a matter of fact, I still teach this. That’s where it gets to identity. I’m a big preponderant of identity. Honestly, we are suffering from an identity crisis because for one fact that we are pro-creators, we can create, take a formless substance and turn it into thought, and then we can massage that thought and turn it into action which produces an outcome which is a result. That is what you call the creative process and everything goes through that.
You look at nature, and nature has a process for everything, but humans fall behind in understanding how to utilize the creative process. This book is perfect because this is where it starts. It starts with the mind. To sum it up, it’s believing in the power that you have to shape thought and form the substance. That may be way out there for a lot of people but that’s what we are talking about here. Hence, why I say we have an identity crisis because this is what we don’t know how to do but yet this is where all creativity, the ability to innovate, be the best version of yourself or get to a goal or an objective. This is it. Even when we reach goals, a lot of times, we don’t realize what we have done to get it. We give credit to other things like our effort, talent or the support we get, which is all part of that process, but it’s not the heart of the process. The heart of the process is understanding these patterns that you are talking about and the effect that it has on you and your ability to create in my opinion.
The creative expression that we all have. The human brain is remarkable. If we could understand this tool that we have, we would never be stopped again because if you think about building blocks for that creativity. Everything that a person has ever heard, seen, touch, tasted and smelled is locked inside the unconscious. It’s behind what Malcolm Gladwell termed, The Locked Door. We don’t have access to it normally. Think about how many books you have read, how many TV movies you have seen and how much you have done in your life if you think about the wealth of data that’s available for creativity once we know how to get out of our way. What is there and not to create? It’s remarkable.
I was with my girlfriend one time and she showed me a YouTube video. It was these three people, 1 girl and 2 guys. They were speaking ten different languages. The title was 3 French Polyglots Speaking in 10 Languages. They call them polyglots. That was the term for people that could speak multiple languages. These three individuals were fluent in ten different languages. What they did during this video is they sat there and had fluent conversations with each other for 5 or 10 minutes, then it will switch.
They will select some random language, and then they will start having a conversation in that language. I’m thinking, “I’m attempting to teach myself Spanish and these guys are rattling off different languages like Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, English, Spanish and German.” It was a testament to the capability of our brains to process that level of intellect and that level of data. It was indicative of what’s possible for human brains.
Personal Empowerment: Unlike other animals that are born intuitively knowing what to do, human beings have to figure it all out.
That epiphany came to light of like, “We only utilize 40% of our brains.” We have the capability to be fluent in ten different languages because these three people can do it, then anyone can do it. I don’t know what it took for them to do that or if they went to school for how many years and learned this on if they were self-taught. I don’t know what process they used, but the mere fact that it’s possible and they are doing it showcases like, “I know one language and I’m fluent in it, but I’m capable of being fluent in it at a minimum. There are ten different languages that I’m aware of.”
That was a shift for me because I’m thinking, “Maybe another one possibly if I can focus, I might learn another one.” In our reality, that’s a limitation. I’m placing on myself that I can only work and learn 1, 8 or 9 more. That’s the shift. Believing that I can do that changes the game because now it’s like, “Let me look for those opportunities for me to do it if that’s something that I want to do.” That works with anything that you want to do in life.
I love what you are saying because the way I look at it is if you think about learning ten languages, you will notice that if you don’t believe it, there is a part of your brain that cuts out, even at the beginning of hearing the language. It’s almost like a muddled confusion comes in and then the thought follows, “I can’t do that.” That’s the patterning. That’s what you were listening to when you hear that model and that tuning out. It’s already pre-determined that you can’t do it. If you can get rid of that, you can do anything.
Isn’t that the pattern for any and everything that is maybe we feel as beyond our current capability? One of the reasons why I got into the work that I do is because I know that people like Michael Jordan, Bill Gates, Elon Musk and all the famous, wonderful names may see their lives and say, “That’s great. That’s awesome. I can’t believe that they have done that.” When it’s come to them to do something great it’s like, “I’m not sure I can do that. I know they did that but I’m not them.”
“They are different.”
That is the pattern that needs to be broken because that is such a lie. That is wrong. Maybe you don’t do exactly that and we don’t need you to do exactly that because that person has already done it. What could you do that’s as significant, important and a contribution to society that we need from you? That’s the thought. The game-changer thinking, “I may not do that but I’m going to do this. To me, it could be equal or even bigger and better than that.” It’s your thing, dream and goal. This is what’s coming from you. Before we even started the race, we disqualify ourselves.
The other thing is, we think we need to know the end when we are just starting on the path. Bill Gates didn’t set out to be Bill Gates. He set out to create software. If we can remember that at every step of the journey, we don’t need perfection. Nature progresses through making mistakes. He progresses by mistake after mistake. That’s evolution. In that, he creates perfection. If we can remember that we were part of that nature and we were going to set out on the step and we were going to trip and, in that tripping, if we can stop seeing it as an error and start seeing it as like, “What did I learn? What’s my opportunity?” Now you can take the next step and then the next step.
We don't need perfection. Nature progresses through making mistakes. Click To TweetI have said it before that the challenge is necessary. It’s as necessary as eating. You’ve got to eat to stay alive. You’ve got to breathe to stay alive. You’ve got to have challenges to evolve and grow. To include mistakes, failures or whatever it is, which is pressed upon you in the form of a challenge is necessary for you to develop and become in the face of that challenge to grow.
That’s easy to say, but isn’t it difficult to live when we are flat down on the floor on the path?
I’m guilty. It doesn’t feel good. How I feel about it is going to dictate the speed at which I overcome and who I am in it. I face challenges all the time and I get attitude. Sometimes, I feel bad. I’m like, “That’s a drag.” I know that as soon as I can shift my mindset, let that go and ask myself, “How was feeling this way serving me?” Realizing, “What I can’t change. Where am I living? Am I living out there? Am I allowing what is going on out there to dictate how I feel and know who I am or am I coming from here? Do I know who I am or who I need to be in this? Do I know where I want to go with this?”
When I start asking myself those questions, that is where the shift happens. I’m with everyone. I 100% empathize with everyone. It’s uncomfortable. It doesn’t feel good. Sometimes, it makes you want to cry, give up and you feel all kinds of negative and disempowering ways, but we have to take ownership over that because I feel that’s the thing that we can control. When we can’t control anything else, the existence of it is how we allow it to affect us. Things can happen and it can take your power away. It’s gone.
You feel defeated, deflated and powerless. That’s the definition of handicapped. You can take your power back by taking your perception and vision back, taking your thought pattern about the thing, and taking control over that. It’s the thought. You are the expert here in terms of the behavior but I feel like when you lose the thought pattern battle and now you are having negative thoughts about who you are as it relates to the thing that has happened to you, that’s where you lose the game because that’s what power is.
When you have positive, affirming, strong, confidence-building and constructive thoughts about who you are in whatever situation you are in, to me, that’s the definition of strength and power. That’s something you can stand. What we need as individuals is to be able to go to that space by ourselves and say, “This is how I’m going to feel about this. I’m going to be this person. I get all of that. I’m not taking it away. I know it sucks but I’m not going to allow that to dictate how I feel about me and strip my identity. If I need to develop my identity and be a stronger person, more intelligent, wiser, more confident, then I’m going to take that on if that’s what is going to allow me to progress beyond this.” In my opinion, that’s the shift.
That’s a powerful way to do life. I always like to add one thing. If anything ever happens, you trip and fall, remember, it doesn’t say anything about you as an individual or anything about your capacity. It’s a pattern and you can deal with a pattern.
Personal Empowerment: Everything that a person has ever heard, seen, touched, tasted, or smelled is locked inside their unconscious. Those are the building blocks of creativity.
What do we do after we say that to ourselves? I feel like there are some actions behind it.
To repattern the brain, it takes four steps. The first thing is you have to identify what it is that is not working. We identify the pattern. Once you know what that is, you mentioned the second step, which is to own it as a pattern. Don’t own it as, “There is something wrong with me.” Typically, we own it as, “I’ve got a problem. I’ve got something I need to fix.” If you can own it like it’s a channel in the brain in which information is running down. It’s like, “That’s a pattern. I can deal with that.” The third step is to deconstruct. Tease apart that channel in the brain. We are going to gently pull it apart or deconstruct it to put it into different channels.
The fourth step is to create that new channel based on that creative expression. You have mentioned all of it. The four steps are simple but simple is not easy as you know. Our brain likes to complicate everything a lot. If anybody ever asks one of your readers the question, “Why did you do that?” Here’s your answer, “It’s because my patterns made me.” There are no other reasons. Your next question is, “Did that work?” If it didn’t work for you and for anybody else, then it doesn’t work. Remove it and apply the four steps. Your brain will do what it does brilliantly anyway, which is to create a new pattern and you will be moving off in a different direction.
What you are describing here are a couple of things. The first thing is you’ve got to practice this. You have to become aware of it and you’ve got to get good at bringing out patterns and creating new ones. Breaking it down, creating another one and trying it out. That’s practice. How do you become good? You got to do this with the challenges and obstacles that come up in your life. If you don’t have a playing field on which to practice, you cannot practice.
I like to say if you reach a goal, set another one. You need that playing field. You need to be climbing the mountain to know where you are going to trip. Keep going.
This is maturing the mind. That’s what we are doing here. When you do that, you are maturing the mind, developing the mind and building that muscle. This is where resilience comes into play. Mental resilience is the ability to bounce back. That is what resilience is. When you get hit with a challenge and the pattern breaks down, now you decide to grow, “How do you break that pattern so that you can get back into action? How do you bounce back?” This is the key here.
I’m grateful for the challenges because not only do they force you to grow and experience new things that you probably wouldn’t otherwise experience that they press upon you but it’s deeper than that. It’s this thing here. When you get into it and you are the type of person like me where I like challenges, I wouldn’t want people to go through what I have been through. I can’t say I would want to go through that again. Will I change anything? No. If I had to go live my life over, I’m going to allow it to happen to where it’s supposed to happen the way it has happened. It’s because of that.
If you reach a goal, set another one. You need to climb the mountain in order to know where you're going to trip. Click To TweetThat’s the value that I see in all of it. We are harvesters and we can harvest the growth and the development out of these things that we go through. That’s why I’m grateful for it. I’m grateful for the fields that we see when we drive in those rural areas because that’s where all the fruits, vegetables and all the things that we need for nutrients come from. All of what seems challenging and detrimental or whatever we could think of to describe things that seem insurmountable or difficult in our lives or uncomfortable, those are those fields out there.
If we go into those fields and we process them and we learn what’s in the soil, how to cultivate it and how to deal with that thing, it will produce something for us. That’s something to be grateful for. You can use that thing to nourish your body. You can use those things that you learn from practicing those patterns to be a greater person, be a better version of yourself, contribute to bring inspiration and empowerment, bring about your gift and the purpose that you have in your life. That could not only serve you but it can serve people all around the world.
You get people that are doing this and they are changing the world. We are dealing with COVID, the people that are in the trenches are the people that we are going to hear about later because they are doing things now that are going to change the world later. They are not stopping. They are taking this thing head-on and say, “I’m going to continue. If I need to pivot, change and become this to do that.” It’s like what you were saying about Bill Gates. He started out one way, but in his tenacity and his ability to challenge those patterns and recreate patterns, this is the outcome. He is Bill Gates and we parade him. We all have the ability to do that and that is the beauty of it. He’s a blueprint. He’s an example of what’s possible when it comes to playing on these fields.
Personally, we have the wrong measure of success. If we can measure success by the number of experiences a person has in their life instead of how much money or fame they have, then we would all be much better off. As you say that the experiences that you had as terrible and as awful as somebody could look at them and say, “They were, Rodney.” It’s why you are here now doing what you do. Without it, you would never be doing this.
That’s part of the identity crisis that we are suffering because, in society, we have been led to believe, “That is what success looks like.”
That’s sad because it’s limiting all of us to a certain definition and preventing us from experiencing life for life’s sake. Who do we become in the face of that? That’s exciting and that’s why I say we live in such a wonderful world because there are many problems and it gives us many life experiences that we can deal with.
Looking at success that way doesn’t address the capability that we all have. It puts the person up on a pedestal because of how they have been able to use the process without talking about the process. We are going to highlight the result of being able to perfect the process without talking about the process. Not even that we all have it, practice it and use it. The mind is such a powerful thing the more we become in tune with our ability to master and challenge it. When we say the mind, it comes down to thought. Do you think feeling drops thought or thought drops feeling?
Personal Empowerment: Shift the pattern, which is an intertwined emotion, physical sensation, and thought, then your thinking patterns will change automatically.
Emotion comes first. We are emotional beings, and then our mind tends to back up our emotions, so it justifies how we are feeling. We are creative in how we justify it.
When we are feeling bad, we will go find reasons why we feel bad and then we believe those things about ourselves and that becomes our identity. We take that on. That’s how we identify with ourselves.
We need to shift first that emotional state, shift the pattern, which is an intertwined emotion, physical sensation and thought. Your thinking patterns will change automatically.
Can we get some practical steps on, “We want to shift our emotion?”
Start with identifying. Let’s say for example you’ve got a problem out there, fighting with a colleague, forget about trying to communicate and understand. Highly likely, you are going to create more conflict. Instead, ask yourself, “What am I feeling? What’s my emotion? Where do I feel it in the body? What is one thought that’s going along with that feeling?” That’s how we start to identify patterns. We are shifting our focus from being out there to be in here. “What’s going on in here?” It’s step one. The next step is going to own it. To deconstruct that pattern, this takes practice. I don’t want your audience to think that you will be able to do this automatically.
To own a pattern is to say, “I created that.” You are the creator of your patterns. Whether you know where they originated or not, it doesn’t matter because those linguistic patterns originated in the womb. You didn’t choose them but you did at some point. Your brain created them at some point. You own it like that. The third step is to surrender to what’s going on at the level of the body. We need to get out of this head of ours. We are too invested in our thinking and we are too invested in thinking that our thoughts are bringing us some importance but they are not. They are just following along with the patterning in the brain, so we are going to surrender and let it go.
What happens when we hit that third step? Our brain is able to see two things occurring at the same time. The first thing it’s able to see is what’s going on in the situation and all of its totality. The holistic picture appears. The second thing that appears is the pattern itself, that way that we are perceiving the world. The meaning that we are bringing, which isn’t a reality at all. When the unconscious sees those two things it goes, “This isn’t working. This pattern doesn’t work.” It does its own thing. It pulls that pattern apart itself and teases that channel apart. At that point, you will be able to create new patterns.
We would be much better off if we measure success by the number of experiences a person has, instead of how much money or fame they have. Click To TweetHow can people connect with you if they wanted to learn more about you and if they want the purchase the book, Shift: 4 Steps to Personal Empowerment?
They can have it for free. I’m here as the messenger to spread this message. I believe that if everybody could start working on their patterns, we would have a much better world. I would love to give it to your audience. All they have to go to is www.Shift4Steps.com. There are two buttons there. One is for a live masterclass. They are welcome to enroll in that. That’s also free. The other one is to get a copy of my book. All I ask is that you pay for the shipping. They are welcome to either one of those. I’m here to support you in any way because we all have those not-good-enough messages that our brain kicks out. They are not true. You are awesome. You deserve to know that.
It’s obvious why we need to address this area of ourselves and our thinking and make that shift to personal empowerment. Why do you feel like this is necessary for people? You put this book out here, it means that much that you wrote a book about it. Why do you feel so strongly about this?
We are walking off a cliff not knowing we are heading towards the cliff. We need to wake up. What drives me is how beautiful, effortless and simple life can be when we are using the right operating instructions. I feel like suffering is unnecessary. I’m not discounting anybody’s problems out there. I understand that a world is in terrible, dire straits. I get it. I don’t want anybody to think that I’m not understanding what the problems are. There are many of them, but if we can get that all of those problems are caused by the way we have patterned our society because patterns aren’t just occurring inside our own selves, they are also patterns of behavior out here, and then we have hope. I would love to give anybody who understands that, who wants to take their own ownership of that, not from the position of blame but from a position of, “I can do something to change that,” I would like to support you. I feel that together, we can change the world. We can’t do it ourselves. You can’t do it. I can’t do it, but together, we can do it. That’s why I’m here.
We are all one team. Different members on the same team with the same goal in winning. The definition of winning is the same for all of us.
That’s happiness, love, connection, compassion and wisdom. That’s the real success.
Also, joy and contribution. I want to thank you for coming to the show. It has been a wonderful conversation with you. You are an amazing person yourself.
One of the things that attracted me to be on your show is your story. You are an inspiration. Thank you for doing what you do because you are such a beacon of hope and light. Everybody needs to read your show. It’s amazing.
Personal Empowerment: If everybody could start working on their patterns, we would definitely have a much better world.
Thank you, Adele. I truly appreciate it. The story that I have is one of the reasons why I got into the business. One thing I realize, when I would go to the doctor, even before I started walking, I had some level of return but not nearly as much as I have now. It was more than what the doctors expected and I would always ask for more, “Anything you can do to help me get further.” What I was telling me is that, “Where you are now, I know it sucks for you but 1% don’t get the level of return that you have. No more than 1% of the people that suffer your injury get that level of return.” I kept going and pushing, and I got to a place where I was walking again. I started walking and I said, “Do you think we can work on running? What can we do?” I got the same response.
You have the level of recovery. For everyone that has suffered this type of injury, only 1% get to the level of recovery that you experience. With that, I realized I’m blessed, grateful and humble for where I am now. It has been hard and difficult. It hasn’t been an easy road but to have a platform like this brings a beacon of hope to someone. It makes all the suffering, tears, difficulty worth it. I have been thinking about, “I was in a wheelchair for twenty years of my life.” I can’t believe that I lived that life for twenty years. I have been walking around now for over a decade. It’s like, “I did that. I was in a wheelchair for twenty years.” It’s different. Some parts of it I have forgotten because it has been that long but it was the awakening. I have been living this life for so long that it’s a blur that I have experienced life in a wheelchair yet, I’m still grateful. It makes me even more grateful to have that experience where I’m thinking about it in that way because it’s not the case for many people that have suffered an injury like this. It makes it all worth it to help somebody. That’s my mission, to be an example of what’s possible.
Regardless of what it is, it’s possible. I’m a living testimony to that. That’s what I want to give to people. If there is one thing that I can give, say to or show them is that it’s possible. Regardless of how bad it is, what the doctors say, how seemingly insurmountable it is, it’s possible. The doctors can only go so far. The doctors can’t go as far as your brain because your brain is your brain. Your thoughts can take you to places that you haven’t even imagined, in conversations like this, books like what you have written.
That’s what I did. That’s what I have learned. I’m an independent thinker. I do believe in the power of thought. I believe that if I hadn’t known what I knew then, visualizing and believing it. Challenging those thought patterns, challenging what I’m thinking and how is it serving me, none of this would have been possible. That’s my level of contribution. I feel that what I went through, I’m making what I have been through my contribution, my way of giving back and saying, “This is how you do it. This is how you overcome. It’s not rocket science. It’s easy to do but it’s easy not to do. You don’t need to go spend a whole lot of money on this or that. You just need to take control of your thoughts and understand who you are as it relates to the creative process.” There is a scripture that I believe in and that is, “We are made in the likeness and kindness of God.” God is energy. It can neither be created nor destroyed. It is the cause and effect of itself. It is the universe. It’s Jesus. It’s that energy. If you can let go of what they call it and then hold on to how it’s used, you can truly go some places because your tone, thoughts and patterns are powerful.
Thank you. It has been a joy. Thank you for inviting me on.
One thing that we always like to do with our guests here on the show is to ask them the game-changing mentality question. This allows you to leave something profound or that last final thought with us. How can we bounce back from adversity, dominate our challenges and consistently win at the game of life?
Know that everything you do, every action you take, every behavior you adopt, every belief you hold is a pattern. If you can honestly get that in your bones, sink it down into the fiber of your being, there is nothing that can stop you. Our brain is made to rewire. We have to know how to do it.
Adele Spraggon on the Game Changer Mentality, thank you for stopping by with us.
Thank you, Rodney.
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There you have it, another successful episode. Know that your thoughts are a pattern. A lot of people say, “I am who I am. I can’t change. This is just who I am. I can’t do that because this is the way I am. I can’t be a speaker or an entrepreneur.” That thought that you have there is a pattern and that pattern can be changed. As we change our patterns, we essentially change who we are, our identity, same name, different person.
I challenge you to challenge your patterns, your ways of thinking, those thoughts, beliefs and your ways of thinking about who you are as it relates to the challenges that you experience in life. Pay attention, wake up, take some notes. Ask yourself, “Is that serving me?” Make the shift. Go out and get the book by Adele Spraggon, Shift: 4 Steps to Personal Empowerment. It is free. We all need you to make that shift so we can make the world a better place. Until next time, stay strong. Stay in love. Keep working. We will catch you on the other side.
Important Links:
- Shift: 4 Steps to Personal Empowerment
- The Patterning Instinct
- 3 French Polyglots Speaking in 10 Languages – YouTube
- Masterclass – To the Pattern Maker Hub
- www.Shift4Steps.com
- http://RodneyFlowers.com/get-up-book/
- http://RodneyFlowers.com/essential-assertions-book/
- https://RodneyFlowers.us9.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=01f76a038256f77a6fbc93590&id=307d726734
- Is Life Knocking You Down? Read Rodney’s inspiring story – Get Up! I Can’t. I Will. I Did… Here’s How! https://rodneyflowers.com/get-up-book/
- Recognize Your Positive Potential – Essential Assertions by Rodney Flowers https://rodneyflowers.com/essential-assertions-book/
- Get Access to Rodney’s Daily Inspiration in your Inbox Today https://rodneyflowers.us9.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=01f76a038256f77a6fbc93590&id=307d726734
About Adele Spraggon
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