Strategies On How You Can Cultivate A Resilient Mindset With Laura Noel

How do you respond to disruptions in your life? The key is to cultivate a resilient mindset. The show’s guest today is Laura Noel, CEO of Stretch Into Success Coaching. Laura talks with Rodney Flowers about how the “art of allowing” makes you more resilient against negative emotions. When you allow yourself to take a break, have a wonderful cup of tea, or a walk in nature, clarity comes to you. You understand better why you feel the way you do. Then, you’ll know how to handle yourself and move forward. Tune in and be resilient!

—

Listen to the podcast here:

Strategies On How You Can Cultivate A Resilient Mindset With Laura Noel

As always, I’m excited about the show. If you are like most high-performing leaders, you are tired of being pulled into multiple directions with zero time left for yourself. Sometimes I feel that way. I have Laura Noel here with me and she helps high performers like yourself live empowered, fulfilling lives all while achieving their highest potential. She helps leaders focus on what matters so we can stop building out of control and become more effective with our time. Welcome to the show, Laura.

Thank you so much for having me. I have been looking forward to this.

There has been a couple of times we haven’t been able to connect but I’m excited to connect with you and the work that you do. I have some specific questions for you that I want to address about the imposter syndrome, how to break negative habits and be more effective all-around as a leader. Before we get into that, I want to see how you have been doing with this pandemic with everything that’s going on. How is life for you, Laura?

Life is good. I feel very blessed. I’m not saying that 2020 hasn’t had its challenges. For me, I work from home so not a lot changed in my physical space. I have clients all over the world. Right before the pandemic was when I made the decision that I’m going to get more plugged into my local community and I had joined the Chamber of Commerce and a networking group. I had been in business for a few years already but I wanted to establish a home base as well. The universe had different plans because then everything shifted. The big change for me and I know a lot of people are struggling regardless of, whether or not you are accustomed to working from home, was getting into a better routine and sticking with it.

I like to talk about that cycle of grief that we all might have experienced throughout this, where you are in denial at first, and then you are a little irritated and grumpy about it, you are accepting it, and then you are like, “This is life. Let me move forward and figure out how I can continue moving forward in spite of everything that’s going on.” It has been a little bit of pivoting throughout 2020 but all in all, I feel blessed.

I can relate to you regarding pivoting and discovering new ways of leading, empowering and inspiring others and being the best version of ourselves. We have all have had the challenge of reinventing ourselves and discovering what it means to lead and be the best version of ourselves because so much has changed and new challenges have been presented to all of us. It’s one of those things where what’s worked in the past may not work presently. We find ourselves in the process of reinventing ourselves, dealing with things about ourselves to hack a change for us to get to that next level or get on the other side of the challenge that’s in front of us.

One of the things that I have found is my routine, the way I was doing certain things. Although it was effective at the time, I’m having to change that and that has been difficult for me because I liked that routine. I have had that routine for so long and it has worked and I know it worked. It has proven itself but yet, I’ve got to do things a little bit differently and discover a new way of thinking, being and implementing structures into my life to maintain the container so it holds the content that I want in my life. That has been a struggle for me because what’s going to work now? When you have been in a routine and a habit for so long that has proven itself over and over and all of a sudden, it’s disrupted, that can be challenging. I’m sure there are other people out there that are dealing with that. As a leader yourself that speaks on this, what are some of your thoughts about how we handle situations like that?

First and foremost, what you are describing and what you have done is you saw the blessing and all of the change, and then inevitably, you have to ask yourself if you want to continue growing in a new environment. Acknowledging what’s going on, accepting it, and then asking yourself, “What can I learn from this? How can I move forward and shifting?” I would like to do that anyway, regardless of, whether or not there’s an external disruptor, because we can get caught up in a routine that seems comfortable. After a while, it gets comfortable. We are cruising along and having successes along the way, and then we can start having those successes that aren’t necessarily catapulting us forward. They make us feel good and we will start moving laterally but it can fool us into thinking you are making quantum leaps.

That’s why I think it’s important now and again to evaluate. Is my schedule working? Could I shift things around? How can I shake things up? How would this person who wants to be here live? How would they be making decisions? Start to tweak things because ultimately, for us to change our external circumstances, what we are attracting to ourselves and accomplishing, it starts inside of ourselves and with questioning, “How can I do things differently?” I always start there but a disruption like this can be a positive thing. It can get us to reevaluate. At the beginning of this pandemic, I completely changed my communication and my marketing. I worked with a team to get clarity on what I’m putting out there in the world and how I’m serving people. It got me to question, “How can I be of greater service now?” Those are the nuggets of gold that we can extract from any circumstance that has been happening.

Let’s look at it from the angle of I want to pull out everything good and harvest the good as much as I can out of a situation. It doesn’t have to be a pandemic. Let’s call it whatever. There’s an issue and something that’s causing disruption. What is the mindset, in your opinion, we should have if we want to pull out everything good from a situation that may be challenging or posing some type of resistance for us?

First and foremost, you have to face the thing that you are dealing with. I find that sometimes people get a little bit confused and they think, “Have a positive mindset.” If you are faced with adversity and you are positive, that doesn’t mean that you are going to move forward because you could be faced with adversity, then go, “Turn that frown upside down. I’m going to have a positive attitude,” but that doesn’t change anything. What you are doing inevitably is resisting the thing, the adversity that you are facing. Face it head-on and accept it for what it is. If you are having difficulty at that moment, love yourself in the difficulty and chaos. That’s a part of you that may not be serving you in terms of moving you forward and that’s okay. That’s where you have a decision point. Accept what’s happening. Feel it, lean into it, love yourself, name those emotions that you are feeling, and then ask yourself, “What can I do with this? What can I learn from this? How would I rather feel moving forward?” There’s a decision point for you.

I want to stick with that because the loving yourself part, that’s a critical moment because a lot of times, we beat ourselves up. I was thinking about this because as a result of everything that’s going on, some other subsequent issues are occurring or have occurred. It’s making the situation challenging for me. I’m being transparent here. I was thinking it’s easy when you are feeling defeated, deflated or you are facing resistance so it continues to come at you. It can make certain little things not matter, like self-care. You start wanting to get away from some of the things that you would typically do because there’s so much disruption that you are seemingly out of your game. When you are not on your game, things around you can seem broken down.

Returning into that self-love, it helps you get grounded when you are going through that emotional turmoil. If you can practice that self-love, it’s a sense of getting grounded. When you get grounded, then I feel that’s the opportunity for you to see clearly and make decisions from a place of groundedness versus deciding a place of stress, force or anxiety. I believe that the people who are reading are hard workers and hard-chargers. They are all about making things happen. We take a lot of responsibility even in the place of challenge to get things done. We carry that and then when things aren’t going the way as planned or maybe not as fast as we would like them to, we are carrying that too because that’s our responsibility. I find that when you can return to love and have that as a foundation when you can still practice that self-care, do those little things, even though this over here isn’t going the way you want it to go, it puts you in a better place mentally and emotionally.

One thing that I love to do and I ask myself and my clients to do the same, at that moment when you are feeling out of sorts, just stop because we don’t question how we are feeling often enough. Many people are out there sleepwalking and they don’t know even how they are feeling. You can stop and say, “I am grouchy or why did I snap that person? What’s going on with me? What do I need?” Hard chargers, I know from personal experience, we will push, keep pushing, forcing and force negate. It’s the art of allowing that space where clarity can come to you so you can make the best decision. I feel like hard-chargers want to stay busy because we value that.

We don’t honor ourselves at that moment and see it as weakness. I know I did. We are not honoring ourselves and respecting ourselves, asking ourselves what we need. If we would give ourselves what we need at that moment, go for a walk in nature, have that wonderful cup of tea, go to the spa, talk with a positive, upbeat friend and laugh. Watch a funny movie and get away from it. I can tell you the number of times I have done something like that and I have come back to my work, and the ideas just flowed.

The information came to me. I was much more effective but it starts with knowing when you are feeling that way and then asking yourself, permitting yourself to take a pause. “What do I need?” Give it to yourself. If somebody you knew was feeling the way you were feeling and they came to you for help and advice, how would you advise them? You wouldn’t say, “Come on, get back to work.” You would say, “Let it out. What are you feeling? How can you be more effective now that you know that moving forward?” You would coach and support them but I find that as hard-chargers, we often don’t support ourselves in the same way.

That’s very important, not just for the pandemic but as a practice of resilience. You mentioned the art of allowing and this is the Game Changer Mentality show and I feel that the art of allowing is a mentality. It’s a mindset but yet as hard-chargers, go-getters, we may not have that at the forefront of our minds in the process of executing, overcoming obstacles and bouncing back. How do we implement this art of allowing in our day-to-day?

First and foremost, you have to carve time out for yourself to think. You have to carve time out in your day, where nothing else is planned other than you being with your thoughts and having a pen and paper. That’s how I start my day. It’s non-negotiable because it sets the tone for the rest of the day. Typically, and the way that I used to operate is I would hit the ground running. I was eating breakfast and drinking my coffee, going out the door and meeting after meeting, and then volunteering in events and family stuff. I would go to sleep and do it all over the next day. There’s no space for you to think.

In a circumstance like that, although we are hard-chargers and we are getting things going and things are happening in our lives, we can become addicted to the activity. We can be successful but there can also be this underlying feeling of, “If only I had more time, I could be more successful.” I could take on this other challenge and be the fullest expression of ourselves but I don’t know where to fit it into my day. It’s not about doing more. It’s about being grounded and connected with doing the right things, not all of the things. For you to do that, you have to carve out that time.

That’s the first step, to quiet the mind. Maybe ask yourself if you enjoy meditating. You don’t have to do anything special to meditate. You could be quiet for fifteen minutes and focus on your breath. Breathe in and breathe out. You will be surprised how much clarity will come from that. You could start that meditation by posing a question. How can I be more effective in less time? Let it go. Don’t force it. Don’t try to come up and think of answers. Allow the answers to bubble up. It might happen in that fifteen minutes but it might happen later on in the day. You will be more aware and more attuned when you hear the answers.

For someone who has been a hard charger all of their lives and has a proven track record that I get things done, they hit a roadblock or there’s resistance. There are obstacles in front of them and they want to implement this mindset of allowing. They have the habit of getting things done, checking off the checklist and crossing things out. How do they balance that? First of all, balance the grittiness of themselves and, at the same time, maybe change some of the habits that were once very value-added type of habits. They were very impactful and effective for them but now there’s a need for everyone to take a step back and allow things to happen for them. How do we do that? How do we balance that out?

Resilient Mindset: Give yourself what you need at the moment. Go for a walk in nature, have that wonderful cup of tea, or talk with a positive, upbeat brand.

Habits are hard to change unless you have a very good reason to change them. We all have blind spots. I don’t care how much of a hard charger you are. We all have blind spots and we are all only operating using a small percentage of our capability, capacity and brain function. There’s so much power that’s locked up inside of us. We would be astounded. I don’t even know how much I can do yet by shifting my thinking and implementing this art of allowing. I have quadrupled my income. I’m giving on such a high level that I have never given before to causes that resonate with me. I couldn’t even see that before creating the space for myself.

The first thing that I did was I took this time to think. Even if you took fifteen minutes every day for a week or two to write out, “If I could ten times my results in every area of my life to my liking, what would that look like?” That will give you an indication of what you would love to be, do or have. Start there. Doodle, write, don’t judge what you are writing and allow the ideas and the information to come out of you. If I could have anything I wanted and I could wave a magic wand, what would that be? Start there and write a shopping list for the next week or two, fifteen minutes a day. Don’t judge it. Write it out. From there, craft a vision, goal, real-life event or something that you can quantify. Smart goals that are incremental are going to keep you playing the same. That’s not what I’m talking about.

I want you to dream because, for you to change a habit that you have been working and living by for so long, you have to have a beautiful vision. Start with taking that time out for yourself, figuring out what it is that you truly want and desire, and then start to change the habit. Make that 15 to 30 minutes a day, where you are thinking and taking inspired action steps along the way. Defining that vision is key because if you are in the grind, even if you are so worn out and stressed out, that’s your comfort zone and we like our comfort zone. For you to change it, you’ve got to have something bigger and more beautiful than your old habit.

What you are describing here is the lighthouse. If you are out in the ocean and the sea is rough and you are doing everything that you can to keep the boat afloat but you are still drifting. You don’t have a sense of direction. It doesn’t even feel like you are going to land in a place where it seems calm and peaceful but the lighthouse is the guide. You are not out in the deep and you are close to the shore. You have a destination to work toward. Let’s go in that direction. It’s not trying to stay afloat but there’s a space we are trying to get to, which would bring on a sense of calmness, peace and comfort.

That’s what you are describing here is having a destination, a worthy goal or a worthy habit to work towards to break the habit. That’s so important when you are facing resistance because it brings with it uncertainty. That’s where a lot of people are. There are a lot of uncertainty in the space but that’s okay. I feel that when there is the presence of uncertainty, that’s the opportunity to create the vision. For those that are feeling sort of out there and maybe feeling like they are on an island or they are feeling like they don’t where to go or where to turn, that’s a great place to be because it allows for your own creativity.

Sometimes we are driven by someone else’s vision, goal or direction, and that’s the definition to me of living from out there, living out in the environment. The environment is dictating where you go, who you are, who you know, your income level and all of that. When you live from here, your creativity, deepest desires, a consciousness of the things that are valuable to you, like your values, goals and dreams. You can create a vision from that space. That can drive you and you have a more personal attachment to that, which could drive you to break that habit, doing something different to get to another space.

You brought up a great point of a lot of people out there are living from the outside in as opposed to from the inside out. That’s what we are taught to do. We are not taught to make decisions in school. We will look at our external circumstances, environment and bank account. We will say, “This is what’s in my bank account. I like to go on this vacation with my family but I don’t have the money.” We will make decisions based on what we physically have as opposed to what we want and the person we want to become. When we do that, we are perpetuating more of the same. We are allowing those circumstances to drive our decision-making. Case in point, when we are feeling like we are stuck in uncertainty, the busy person is going to go, “I don’t know what to do with my hands. I have to do something.” We are like a pinball in a pinball machine, getting bounced around from one thing to the next and what we are not doing is we are not thinking.

Mental stimuli are not thinking. Thinking comes from within. It comes from your imagination. What do I want? You have to dive deep. You have to get quiet. Your intuition, that voice that tells you to bring the umbrella, it’s going to rain, we typically ignore it, and then we get dumped on when we go outside. Those mental faculties come from within and we’ve got to get accustomed to utilizing them instead of being conditioned to act based on what’s going on outside of this. Type A overachievers, the hardest work you will ever do in the world is learning how to do that. It’s not easy.

Do you have time in your schedule where you think? Is there a block of time in your schedule? From 12:00 to 1:00, this is my thinking time.

I do. I have thinking days. I have days where I don’t plan anything. I don’t block anything other than thinking and planning. My mentor, Bob Proctor, has a whole thinking day and he will have his calculator, ideas are coming and numbers. He’s writing things down and whatever bubbles up, and then he acts on it. It’s not a thinking day for the sake of thinking. It’s thinking so that he takes inspired action. When you set your sights on a goal, your intuition, inner GPS and higher self are guiding you for that goal. When we are not listening because we are so busy, we are taking action based on external circumstances, not on our guidance system. That is your path of least resistance. That’s why it’s so critical to creating the space to think. It’s not a cliché that true success is not all doing and grit. It’s a 95% thinking mindset, the 5% physical doing. Imagine if you did the right things that would move and get the momentum going in your business, as opposed to I’m going to do everything and see what sticks, that’s what we do because we value doing.

Resilient Mindset: Find out what it is that you want and change your habit.

A point that I want to bring up here that maybe is missing from the conversation is when we are thinking there’s something that’s happening during this process because what you are describing is the creative process, which is the part of us, in my opinion, that’s overlooked the most. As human beings on this planet, you can create. This is how we do it but the key is the thing that resonates with you when you are going through that process. A lot of things can come up. We think about a lot and we have over 70,000 plus thoughts in a day. We are always thinking.

Something happens when there’s a thing called resignation. When it is resonating with you, things are connecting, you feel a sense of connection and attachment to a thing that you are thinking of as a possibility, those are the things that we should take action on. This stops a lot of people because these could be big, bold, audacious thoughts that don’t seem impossible. It seems like for me to do that or to get there, there’s such a large gap that I would never close the space. What are your thoughts when someone is going through this process? I think we have all gone through this process one way or another. The gap happens. Something resonates and we would like to have that, then immediately that voice or another thought comes up and says, “That’s impossible. That will never happen. Too far.”

A part of your mind governs your habitual behavior. It’s in your subconscious mind. 96% to 98% of our behavior is habitual. That part of our mind that governs our behavior is our paradigm. Our paradigm is those multitudes of habits that were passed down from generation to generation. A lot of them, we don’t even know why we do them. Think about the things that you might do or say in the heat of a moment, you open your mouth and your mother comes out or somebody that was around you back in the day when you were growing up, somebody that influenced you and you are like, “Where did that come from? I don’t even believe it.” Those beliefs become a part of our DNA. Your mind is designed to keep you comfortable and your subconscious mind doesn’t know the difference between fear, bad stress and good stress when you are growing. It just knows you feel stressed and so it will always try to comfort you and keep you safe.

When you have an idea to do something, to set a goal that is vastly different than what you have been doing, even setting that goal, you are getting out of your comfort zone. There’s a part of your mind, that paradigm will try to pull you back to your comfort zone. The bigger your goal and the milestone you are reaching, the bigger the success, the louder your paradigm will be. That’s that voice that’s telling you, “You don’t know-how. You don’t have the money. Who’s going to help you? You have never done that before.” That’s that voice that’s trying to pull you back to your comfort zone.

You have to understand how the mind works. Any time you are reaching a goal, you reach a milestone. Even when you declare a goal that’s much bigger than what you have done before, there’s always a dip that comes just after that. You reach the milestone and you are like, “I reached this milestone. Now, what?” The fear kicks in because you have never done that before. Most people will go back to safety. “This doesn’t feel right. Maybe I’m not ready. I don’t know how.” You will succumb to that doubt and then you will back off. “Let me slow down. This is moving too quickly.” That’s typically what people will do.

If you understand that part of your mind there’s nothing wrong, it’s trying to bring you back to your set point, your home base. You have to be in charge of yourself consciously and say, “How do I feel? I’m feeling afraid because I don’t have all the answers and I can’t see the how.” Let’s acknowledge it and love it because that fear kept you from doing that in the past. That fear in that circumstance, that paradigm, kept you safe. It served your purpose at the time but that’s not serving me now where I’m going. What do I need? Fulfill that need. Now, let’s move forward. What would I rather have? Let’s stay focused on the vision. The vision is so important and it has to be greater than that loud, screaming, insidious paradigm.

Correct me if I’m wrong because this is beautiful, what we are talking about. The next step to that is associating an identity with that. When you are having those conversations with yourself, what comes up for me is, “Who do I need to be to accomplish X or Y that is resonating with me?” A lot of things can come up. It could be, “I need to be more compassionate with myself.” It could be whatever it is. There are all types of things that are going to come up. The next question is, “Am I willing to take that on?” When you are willing to take that on, then immediately, it makes what perhaps we could have thought was impossible or too far.

When I decide that I’m willing to take that on, meaning I’m willing to adjust my identity and be that person, what happens is, we get stuck in an identity that prevents us from moving forward or reaching that goal because where we are, we know who we are. We know what we are based on where we are. To get where we want to go, requires an adjustment to self, adjustment to who we are, how we view the world and how we show up in the world, as it relates to where we are trying to go. I feel that a lot of times, we are not willing to take that on. We want something different or we want the thing that’s up there but we are not willing to take on the identity or be the person that would obtain the thing that’s there.

That, in my opinion, is a wish and a hope, and it’s not going to move you forward. A committed decision will. It’s so interesting because a part of your paradigm is your self-image. Some so many leaders are the go-to person. They are incredible at what they do, they are mentors themselves and have their hands in everything. There’s a fear of, “I want ease and flow but if I stop doing X, Y and Z, then who am I?” You can’t do the things and craft who you are as you reach the goal. You are not going to reach the goal until you decide who you want to be and you write that script of him and her, and you become that person in your mind.

Look for people who are doing what you want to do. If you are that type-A overachiever, you are spinning your wheels in the rat race and you are exhausted but you see somebody who is like, “That leader is incredible. They always have a smile on their face. They always seem so calm and focused. They are not pulled in a million different directions. When they are talking to me, they are 100% fully present. I know where they are going. I can feel their energy. I want to be like that.” Build a self-image of yourself and taking on some of those attributes. Do something now that that person would do. Start making decisions like that person now.

The goal becomes the result of, first of all, the thought, the decision, and then the habits or the identity that supports the thought and the goal. What we described was thinking into results. We went through that whole process right there.

Feeling always precedes goal achievement. Think about every time you reached a goal and you were at a high spot. How did you feel right before you reached that goal?

I don’t remember who talked about the story but there was a story about a family and a kid. The family told the kid, “We are going to go to the beach.” There was so much anticipation and energy around the fact that they were going to the beach. Now, there was a considerable amount of time before they went to the beach. This kid knew that they were going to the beach so he was excited and energized. They went on this journey and finally made it to the beach. The kid went to the beach. The excitement left. He got to go and there was no more excitement. It was done.

On the path to anything, if we have the right level of energy with the right level of excitement about that thing, it moves you into action. I don’t know all the details of the story but the kid was pressuring the parents because the parents told him, “I was going to go to the beach. You are going to take me to the beach.” There was a lot of activity and that forced the parents to stop what they are doing and take this kid to the beach. After it was over, they didn’t have any problems with the kid because the goal was reached.

Resilient Mindset: Feeling precedes goal achievement. You have to become the person you want to be now in every aspect of your life.

There’s a certain level of excitement and energy when we have those visions and you make that decision, “I’m going to do that, I want to do that or I’m going to take that on.” Allow those emotions to come up and allow the feeling of having it now. Feel what that feels like. A lot of times, we want to wait until we get it to feel it but you lose a lot of momentum. You can gain so much more momentum when you can feel what it feels like to have it now and be in that space. The thing about it is the things that we were after, whether it’s money, it’s not so much the thing that we want. It’s the feeling that the thing gives us. That’s what we truly want because if there was a way we could feel what it feels like to have $1 million if someone would create that, that’s an idea. There are a lot of people that will buy into that.

You could do that. You can ask yourself, “What does it feel like that to be a high achiever,” or whatever it is that you want and start feeling that daily, you are propelling yourself into the future or you are bringing something in the future into the present. You are feeling what it feels now and then that could spark new ideas. You will be surprised at how that could cause you to come up with certain ideas or tasks that you are going to execute. That’s going to take you to that space or bring you a step closer to the space that you want to be in reality. It’s being in that space of having it now. It can create so much momentum and give you the energy to accomplish it.

That, in a nutshell, is how you change nonproductive or negative habits. Einstein said that everything is energy. That’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. This is not philosophy. This is physics. Think about if a negative person walks into the room and you are in your circle of friends, you can feel it even if you are not consciously aware of what it is. You don’t want to be around that person. If there’s somebody that’s gregarious and joyful, you feel compelled to be around them. You want to be in their energy. You have attracted each other.

Your thoughts are also energy. When you think of a negative thought, “Why can’t something be done,” and you are focused on that, you will constantly find evidence to support that. As opposed to when you think about the thing that you want and you can get into the feeling of your wish fulfilled, you will start to find solutions and reasons why you can, and that ultimately is what is going to drive your behavior. Your feeling is the conscious awareness of the energy, the vibration you are in.

When you are in that realm, that state of being and feeling, you will start to be inspired to take different actions. You will start making decisions like that person who is in that beautiful image that you created in your mind. You will start doing the things that they do. Before you know it, you will look back and months will go by and you won’t even recognize the person you are looking at. That’s how you start to shift your habits. There’s a whole process that I take people through to teach them to do that but that’s, in essence, what we are doing.

That vibration that you put yourself in, as a result of feeling, attracts certain things. It’s the vibration that you are in. That determines what you attract. That’s why we must be conscious of what we are feeling because that’s the level of vibration that we are in. It’s going to attract based on that vibration. If you are in a negative vibration, you are going to attract negativity. If you are in a prosperous vibration, you are going to attract prosperity thoughts, prosperous people and things that are supporting the vibration.

You had said something earlier about making decisions and you get that idea or that flash of inspiration, something that comes from your intuition. Sometimes we don’t act on it. That is key. One of the things that stop people in their tracks is they set the goal, “I want this.” Typically, people will set goals after they figured out how, and then they will set the goal because your mind is designed to keep you comfortable and it’s not going to have you set a goal that you can’t achieve. That’s why people go, “Now I know how to do that. That’s my goal.” You are not growing. You are moving laterally.

Taking inspired action. If you set a worthy goal, a goal that’s worthy of the greatness inside of you, you are not going to know all of the steps to get there. This is where your intuition is key. You get an idea. “I feel inspired to go to 7/11 and get a coffee or something,” but you go there, and then the person in line and back of you is talking, and they are the person that you need to advance your vision. Those little things and synchronicities are not little synchronicities. Pay attention, listen and take the action. When you are visualizing your goal, you can feel it, you can see it in your mind’s eye and then you get an idea to call somebody, do it because that’s inspired action. You are in harmony with your goal. You don’t see all the steps but you see the next step. Take it and there are ways that you can practice that.

I believe that everything has a gestation period and the vision is to start at that period. It’s the start. It’s similar to when you put a seed in the ground. You know it’s going to turn into this beautiful tree. You can see it and you know the DNA of the seed but it’s just a seed that you put in the ground. You know if you cultivate it and work with it, it’s going to turn into this beautiful tree and there’s a time that’s associated with that. It’s the same thing with your vision. We have to trust like you put the seed in the ground but you don’t forget about it. You believe in the process that there’s energy there that’s going to cause that seed to come out of the ground and turn it into a tree if you cultivate it. If you water it, make sure it’s planted in the proper place and it’s going to get the right sunlight. If you do your part, that tree is going to appear. It’s going to grow.

We trust that the energy that is needed to produce the tree is there and if we do our part, it’s going to manifest itself. We have to take the same approach with our vision and the goals. We have to trust that process. Even though I don’t know how this tree is going to come out of the ground and turn into a tree and bear fruit, I don’t understand all of that but I know the DNA is there. I’m still going to water it. It hasn’t come up when I thought it was going to come up but I know it’s going to come up so I’m going to continue to water it. We have to do the same thing. We have to trust that if I take this action, assert myself and do the things that I committed to doing when I asked myself, “Am I willing to take on this level of identity and be the person that’s going to water this tree and cultivate this tree and this vision?” We have to trust that the next step, phase and person I need to talk to is going to appear.

You don’t have to know the how and yet I love the analogy of a garden. Typically, people will say, “This isn’t working fast enough,” and they dig up the seeds. “Is this working?” We are killing the tree or they set it and forget it. You can’t set it and forget it with your mindset. You have to be living in your goal. You have to become that person now in every aspect of your life and make decisions like that person because if you are not fueling and cultivating your dream or that tree, weeds are going to grow. Something is going to grow.

The dream killers are going to take over. Laura, this has been a wonderful conversation. How can people reach you if they wanted to learn more about you?

I have a little website for your audience. It’s, StretchIntoSuccess.com/gamechangermentality. On that page, there are a few different ways to connect with me. There’s a free download, a little PDF, 6 Mindset Changing Techniques to Achieve a More Fulfilled Life. You can download that. I do free workshops and webinars. There’s another link there that you can sign up for the waitlist so you are notified in terms of the next one. If there’s something that resonated with you and you wanted to have a deeper conversation about your particular circumstances, you can book a quick call with me and I would be happy to get you pointed in the right direction.

Thank you for that information. I wanted to speak on the fact that what we have talked about thus far is not a one-and-done type of activity. This is an ongoing process or ongoing way of being, reinventing yourself. After the pandemic, resilience became such a large topic. Everyone started talking about resilience, reinventing yourself and pivoting. I feel that this process of reinventing ourselves is a continuous process throughout our lives. It’s not something that we want to focus on now because there’s a pandemic but I think it’s something, especially as leaders, that you want to focus on day-to-day because you want to reinvent yourself every day.

As new challenges and opportunities are presented, it requires us to reevaluate. What are we thinking? What do I need to let go of? What new do I need to take on? How do I cultivate it? It’s like a good farmer can plant in any type of weather as the seasons change and produce fruit. That’s what we should strive for as leaders, in my opinion. It’s the ability to reinvent ourselves as the seasons’ change and discover new ways of being within those different seasons that are going to produce the result that we want. That’s the key. That’s true success. Everything else is a result of the process. Being able to produce the food in any type of weather, it’s then able to go through that process and win. Being able to implement the process in any environment, every single time, that’s the Game Changer Mentality. That’s what we should strive for, in my opinion.

That’s so true because you are right. There’s no such thing as stability. We are governed by universal laws, even though we don’t understand them, like the Laws of Physics and the Law of Gravity. I don’t know all the ins and outs but I’m not going to go jump off a building thinking I can fly. I’m not going to test it. There are universal laws that govern our way of being in this life. One of them is that nothing rests. Everything is vibrating at a high frequency made up of molecules changing. There’s the Law of Perpetual Transmutation of Energy as well, the Law of Vibration. Nothing is stable, and that’s a misconception. Sometimes people will say, “There’s nothing I would change. I want it exactly the same.” Even if you didn’t change and you did nothing for your growth, the world around you is changing. By the nature of everything else around you changing and not you, you are in a state of decline or decay.

You have to always be learning, growing, asking yourself questions. I always say the quickest way a coach or a mentor can compress time so you don’t have to struggle, you can get there much quicker when you have that guidance because we all have a blind spot. I’m a coach. I have a coach for different aspects of my business and my life. I have learned the value of that. That’s how you can capitalize on shifting and growing much faster.

We have talked about it a lot. We have shared a lot of nuggets to help people become more effective leaders and high performers but what is the one thing that you would like to leave with us that would help us bounce back from adversity, dominate our challenges and consistently win at the game of life?

Resilient Mindset: You can achieve your goals much quicker when you have guidance.

Go back to your future self and ask yourself how that person would react in this circumstance. Feel what you are feeling, embrace it, love it, and then ask yourself the person who has reached this milestone, earned this amount of money or has done this wonderful thing, how would he or she address this situation? A lot of times, when we have reached the goal, those things that happen around to us, probably wouldn’t have as much of an impact if we reached our goal. Usually, we are reacting based on fear or frustration. If we can go back, feel what we are feeling, love it, and then ask ourselves, “How would millionaire so-and-so that has this impact around the world respond to the situation?”

Laura Noel on the show. You are welcome. Thank you. I appreciate you. You are definitely a game-changer. Any way that we can support you, please let us know. We appreciate you coming to the show.

Likewise, thank you so much.

—

There you have it, folks, another successful episode of the show. Everything is a process and energy. We are always in and out of the process. If we can remember that whatever we are going through and facing, it’s temporary because we are in a process. Sometimes within that process, you are at a peak. Everything is high. It’s great. It feels good, and then there are valleys where it’s not so good but here’s the key. It’s all necessary for your growth and for you to get where you want to go in life to reach the dreams, goals and visions that you have for yourself. There’s no way you can get there without going through the process. We have to go through the valleys to get to the peaks and that’s how it is.

When we can understand what the key difference is, is who we are choosing to be in those dips, even on the peaks. Who are we choosing? What are we choosing? Do we have a vision? Are we able to shift, adjust and create new visions for ourselves that allow us to strive and to continue to go through the process willingly to develop, grow and become the better versions of ourselves? That’s how we stretch into success. That’s thinking into results. Until next time. Peace and love.

Important Links:

• Laura Noel
• StretchIntoSuccess.com/gamechangermentality
• 6 Mindset Changing Techniques to Achieve a More Fulfilled Life
• http://RodneyFlowers.com/get-up-book/
• http://RodneyFlowers.com/essential-assertions-book/
• https://RodneyFlowers.us9.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=01f76a038256f77a6fbc93590&id=307d726734

About Laura Noel

Laura Noel is an Executive Business and Personal Development Consultant who works with organizations and individuals to help streamline business processes while maximizing profits. She helps clients stretch their thinking in a way that opens them up to new possibilities. Prior to becoming an entrepreneur and CEO of her own company, Laura studied and taught personal growth, change