00:39

Hey, everyone. Welcome to this week's episode and the first of a six-part series where I am teaching you the life mastery method. We are talking about how to create change. Today, we're talking specifically about can people really change?

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00:56

Is it even possible? What does that look like? And over the next several weeks, you are going to be learning the life mastery method and what it really takes to create change for yourself and why it matters, by the way.

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01:12

And you're also going to learn for those of you that are coaches, what it takes to support your clients in that true lasting change. So that's what we've got going on. I'm so glad you're here. I have a worksheet to go along with each of these episodes.

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01:29

And these are also available on YouTube as a video training. But listen, if you're listening to the podcast right now and this is easy for you, please do not think, oh, I'll go watch it later. I'll go to YouTube.

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01:40

We all know how that goes. So stay with me here. Either way, you're going to get all of the content. I recommend any way that you listen to these more than once. Use the worksheet to help you. I am so excited to talk with you about this because change and our ability to change and what that opens up for us is something I am deeply, deeply passionate about.

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02:02

And I'm going to share with you a little story here in just a minute that was so meaningful to me. So before we move into this, two things I want to make mention of. Number one, we are enrolling for master coach training.

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02:17

I am so excited about the group this fall. We start in September. I am taking applications now. So if you have been watching, you've been waiting, now is the time. This is the last time that I will be personally teaching and mentoring in this group.

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02:34

I have some phenomenal coaches coming in here and I would love, love, love to have you. So that's number one. Second thing I want to mention to you is that there is a private podcast bundle available to you.

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02:49

What does this mean? It means there is a link in the show notes or you can go to my website and you can opt in to get a bundle of podcasts. It will take you right to a private podcast. You can access it wherever you listen to those.

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03:01

And it is podcast episodes that are specifically helping you understand more about the Master Coach training journey, what it looks like, why it matters, and to really help you to understand if it's for you.

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03:14

So two big things right there. And now let's dive in and talk about this first training, this first podcast in the series. Can people really change? Do people really change? Now, it makes sense that we all want to know the answer to this question because we all know, all of you right now, I know, can think of someone who you have seen over and over again do the same self-defeating behaviors, right?

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03:45

Self-sabotage. They say they want to change and they don't. And over and over again, you see the same destructive behaviors, right? You can all think of at least someone. And also, I'm sure all of you relate to those moments where you find yourself doing the same thing over and over again, despite your best efforts, despite a desire to want things to be different.

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04:10

And what do we do? We find ourselves saying, I'm never going to really change. Like, this is just who I am. There is no other option. Right. And so, and the truth of the matter is changing, not just changing our behaviors, but changing our internal world, it takes effort.

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04:29

It takes effort. And so no wonder we really have been asking this question, is change possible? And the answer is yes. The answer is yes. And while we can all think of that person that we've seen their entire life, that they do the same thing over and over again.

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04:48

And if you're wondering, can that person really change? I want to direct you here right now in this session, in this training, in this conversation, to be thinking instead about you changing, because truly, you, right?

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05:03

I am the only person that can truly choose and decide if I change. And the same is true for you, right? So for you as a listener, I want you to be thinking about this in terms of the changes you want to make, your ability to change, the possibilities for you.

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05:24

And we forget about everyone else. And then for you as a coach, if you are a coach, those of you that are coaches, you can, of course, apply this to how you can powerfully support your clients in the change that they so desperately want.

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05:45

Okay, this is going to be such a great series. I'm so excited to be here with you. This stuff just lights me up. So I want to tell you about what happened this last week. And I can already tell I'm getting emotional about it.

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05:59

I was actually in this very room. And here I'm in my office recording this podcast for you. And my office can kind of double as a guest room. So I've got this little day bed over here. And my son, who just turned 24, was lounging on the bed.

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06:15

He and I were chatting. He was over. We were spending some time together. And we were talking about how important it is for each of us in our lives to prioritize our own needs in our life and in relationships and how healthy that is.

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06:35

And how, you know, for people who have over their lifetime, and I can say this is the case for me, learned that like the way I stay safe, the way I'm useful, the way I'm a good person is by having no needs at all.

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06:48

We really have to work to understand that paying attention to what we need and bringing it into the equation in our relationships is the only way, the only way we can actually have a healthy, positive, thriving relationship and how we can have a good, strong sense of well-being and good mental and emotional health, period.

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07:13

So we're talking about this. And I'm amazed at my son as I hear him being someone who has always been, always been so thoughtful of others, so caring, the first one to put himself aside and take care of others.

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07:31

And I'm having this conversation with him and I'm seeing that he is truly being emotionally mature enough and feeling safe enough in his life to recognize that he as a human being has needs as well, right?

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07:47

So I'm sitting here, I'm amazed at my child. And I compliment him on this. And then I follow it up and say, I know I haven't always been the best example of this. And this is what he said to me. And let me just tell you, let me just tell you, as a parent, like my mama heart, I'm not sure I could have heard anything better, anything better from my kids.

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08:12

If I've done this one thing, like I am good. He said to me, you know, mom, as I've seen you go through so many different things and navigate some challenges that you never expected. And I've just seen you, right?

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08:29

He's seen me. Our kids see us. It's kind of hard as you get older and realize, oh my gosh, like my kid is out of front row seat and they see things about me that I don't even see, right? But he said to me, it's been really amazing to watch you and see how you really have changed and you do change.

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08:49

And he said, you know, essentially along the lines of what that's shown him is that you're not stuck in any way of being. You're not stuck as just who you are. You're not stuck if you're in a state of feeling really down or dealing with depression or anxiety or whatever you're dealing with.

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09:06

It's not a permanent state. And let me tell you, I mean, first of all, obviously it was a compliment. And for that, it's always nice to hear that and receive that. And also, just for me to know that he knows change is possible and he's not stuck where he is.

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09:23

That's the thing. That's the thing. And this is what I want to get all of you excited about today. And this is why I'm so passionate about master coach training and about the fundamentals that I teach and about the way that I help my clients to be able to work with their own internal world so they can have the change in their life that they want.

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09:50

So is change really possible, right? You see here on my lovely flip chart, can people really change? The answer is yes. It used to be that we were taught, I remember learning, oh, well, the brain is fully formed at 25.

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10:06

Like that's it, right? Well, we know that's not true, though. Now, what we know is personality is both stable and also malleable, okay? And becoming more emotionally stable, more conscientious, more outgoing, more compassionate, more resilient, we see in the research that these things can all happen.

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10:30

They can all happen. They can all change. Okay. And I want to add to this that we absolutely can change our patterns. Okay. We can change our patterns by having more awareness, which is exactly what the coaching methodology that I use is all about, right?

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10:50

Awareness and better regulation. So think about any pattern that you have in a relationship, for example. When you can have awareness of your pattern and you can have that awareness while bringing compassion for the self, by releasing judgment and being curious and understanding how you can actually learn to look at your pattern and feeling safe enough to do so and look at it objectively without believing it means something is wrong with you.

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11:31

This opens up the opportunity for us to be more honest about our patterns because our patterns are not because we're a bad person. Our patterns are there because we have had those patterns for a long time and they developed because we were trying to protect ourselves.

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11:49

So I'm going off on a bit of a tangent with that, but awareness means we can change our patterns, regulation of our nervous system by reminding ourselves that we're safe, by bringing that self-compassion, creating safety for ourselves, right?

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12:10

New patterns mean new possibility. I want you to just stop for just a minute and think about what is one pattern that if you could change it, things would be different in your relationship, in your business, in your work life, in your health.

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12:28

If that one pattern could change, what would be different? Now, the reality is that change takes time, but it is worth it. It is worth it because you can open up to a better quality of life. This has just been on my heart and mind so much.

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12:44

I don't know why. I don't know why. Maybe because, you know, recently I've with dealing with this concussion that I just, I can't keep talking about it, but I cannot believe how much it has affected me.

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12:54

And it's been hard to deal with. And it makes you realize how much you appreciate your brain. You appreciate your emotional stamina. You appreciate your ability to be fully alive. And my own mom died at 52.

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13:10

And that is just, it's way too young. It's way too young. And it's just that 52 is just around the corner for me. Right. And so as I think about this, I'm like, yes, creating change and making our lives better and living them to the fullest, it is 100%, 100% worth it.

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13:32

All right, let's keep going here. Let's talk a little bit about the trans-theoretical model. Okay, so this has been highly influential in psychology. This was developed by James Prochesca and Carlo DiClemente.

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13:47

And the reason I'm bringing this up is because it is really looking at change and treating change with a different viewpoint than probably most of you have and most of your clients have as well, for those of you that are coaches.

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14:00

So sometimes we can ask, have I really changed, right? Which oftentimes we ask that as really a detriment to ourselves. Like, have I really changed? Have I changed because I see evidence that I haven't?

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14:10

And instead of asking this question, this model really asks, where are you in the process of change, right? So in simple terms, we can think about this kind of like a fixed mindset and a growth mindset, right?

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14:23

And looking at change as incremental. And some of the stages of change that are highlighted are things like, first, not considering change, right? And most people, I want to just pause here. Why are most people not considering change?

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14:38

It's not because they don't see that they want things to be different. Sometimes that can be the case, right? But the first thing that comes to my mind is thinking about how when our lives are full of too much chaos, too much busyness, and too much stress, change can seem impossible.

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14:57

So we don't even consider change because it just seems like too much work. Like, why would I bother if it's not even going to happen? Right. So I think it's helpful to normalize that there's a point, like I can think of things that I've started to change that it used to be, I didn't even think about it, right?

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15:14

So there's a part where we're not considering change and that's okay. Then we're considering change, preparing for change, taking action, and finally maintaining new behaviors. So I'm not saying this is absolute.

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15:27

I just wanted to introduce this because I really am wanting to sell you on this idea of just how possible change is because I know it can be difficult for your clients to see it and believe it. And it can be difficult for us when we find ourselves in the same patterns over and over again, right?

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15:51

So let's talk about one last concept, and that is self-efficacy. Okay. So one of the biggest indicators or the difference, I would say, between like, are people going to change or are they not going to change?

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16:07

There has to be this self-efficacy, which really means I can actually do this, like the belief that you can actually do it. And what I want to say about this is this isn't absolute. Like think about this for a minute.

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16:24

Think about something that you are either currently working on or have worked on in the past and have accomplished it. There are moments when we do think and feel as though I can absolutely do this. And there are also moments when we have a lot of doubt.

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16:45

So even though this has really been identified as like this confidence that I can do something as a, what would I say, sort of a fundamental thing that's a difference maker. What I want to offer up is this is not set.

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16:59

And this is exactly why coaching matters. This is exactly why I'm so passionate about my life mastery method of bringing in the fundamentals of lasting change, because we can, within ourselves and for our clients, build this self-efficacy by small steps, by supportive processes, by taking that one small step and gathering evidence and building proof for ourselves and new patterns and habits that show us that our change is possible.

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17:42

Okay. Let's talk. I'm just going to give a little bit of an overview on the life mastery method, and then I'm going to wrap up this session. And then next time, I am diving deep into the mind, our thoughts.

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17:55

Okay. Why do our thoughts matter? And I want to explain to you my approach to working with our thoughts because there are, there's plenty out there, right, on mindset, thought work, belief work, all these things.

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18:09

And I'm going to talk about, I'm going to talk about why it matters. And I'm going to talk about it in a little bit different lens. So I'm really super excited about the next session with you all. So the life mastery method, this is what I teach in my master coach training.

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18:25

This is where I incorporate the four fundamentals that you hear me talk about over and over again. Okay. So what we're talking about is understanding the mind. What do I mean by this? You, me, your neighbor, your best friend, we all have thought patterns.

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18:45

We typically think the same basic thoughts over and over again, day in and day out. And the way we're thinking influences how we feel. The way we're thinking influences and drives actions. The way we think about our life creates our experience of life.

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19:13

And so if we are having thought patterns and thought patterns are related to emotion patterns, how we feel, thought patterns are related to behavior patterns. Doesn't it make sense that we want to understand our mind much better than we do now?

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19:36

You've got to understand the mind in order to think about this, this idea of I can actually do this. What are the thoughts that we currently have that either support or do not support the idea that we can create change?

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19:50

We have to understand our mind and we have to understand our mind through the lens of knowing that we do not have access to all of our thoughts and that we do have other things coming into play. We do not control every thought we have and just working with our thoughts or our mindset alone doesn't do the trick.

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20:12

Okay, so that's what we're going to talk about. So the mind, super powerful, super important, but we need to understand it as part of the bigger picture. Okay. Next thing, super important in the life mastery method is emotions.

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20:27

Okay. And our connection with our own emotions, our awareness of our emotions, our relationship with our emotions. We talk a lot about emotional resilience, but what most people don't think about when they think about emotional resilience is it's emotional resilience is more than grit.

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20:48

Emotional resilience is actually our ability to have a relationship with our own emotional world. And we're talking about this on the third in this series because I know this is a big topic. This is probably my favorite topic.

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21:04

It has been the game changer for me. So emotions. If you are going to make changes in your life, you need to understand your emotional patterns. You need to understand your emotional needs.

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21:19

You need to understand how to work with the different emotions that come up for you so that your emotions can be integrated in as a powerful part of your change and your transformation. Okay. The next crucial piece of the life mastery method is you've got to know your nervous system.

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21:41

You've got to be nervous system informed. Okay. And you've got to understand more about nervous system regulation. So in master coach training, when I'm working with my clients, we view, we are looking at thoughts and emotions through the lens of understanding the nervous system as well, because the nervous system is the backdrop of all of our thoughts and feelings.

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22:05

And so the truth is that your nervous system and specifically the state of your nervous system at any point in time will flavor the thoughts that you're having, will flavor the way that you're thinking, will flavor the way that you're feeling.

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22:21

So a minute ago, I was talking about thoughts on repeat, right? Well, if I'm in a certain state, if I'm in a sympathetic nervous system state, my thought patterns are going to be very different than if I'm in a parasympathetic nervous system state.

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22:35

So you've got to understand that. It's so fundamental. And when it comes to life mastery, when it comes to permanent change, you need to get to know your own nervous system and recognize when you're in any given state.

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22:53

Okay. Next up, systems, patterns, plans. Sometimes I talk about this as action strategies that work. The fact of the matter is with change is that environment matters way more than willpower. In fact, willpower is not the way.

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23:13

We're going to talk about that in just a minute. Environment matters. And so what this means is that when you can understand more about your own mind, more about your own emotions, more about your nervous system, you can put in place the type of systems, the type of plans, the type of accountability that actually works with your emotions, with your mind, with your patterns, and makes it all easier and better.

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23:43

Because when you have environmental factors in place, it allows the change in your patterns and behaviors to happen much more naturally. And I want to back up a little bit because when I was first trained as a coach, I was trained solely in looking at how thoughts are everything.

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24:06

It's kind of like this idea that the only problem is always a thought problem. If you want to have something change, you always need to look at the thoughts first. You have to change the thoughts in order to change the emotions, in order to change the behaviors.

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24:22

But that's actually not true. There are actually many ways that we can get to the same place. And in fact, sometimes having the right type of systems, patterns, plans in place to ease your ability to create change influences what you believe about yourself, influences the way you think about yourself.

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24:46

So sometimes the action is the starting point and the shift in the thoughts is what happens as a result of that. Super powerful and absolutely essential when it comes to creating change in your life.

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25:01

The last thing I want to touch on, so this mind, emotions, nervous systems, actions, you've heard me talk about these a lot as the fundamentals of lasting change, right? Then this, and this is last, not because it's the least important, but probably because it's the thing that you really need to remember.

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25:20

And that is relationship with self. Now, each of these that I've talked about, I'm going to have a whole episode, a whole training on them in this series, okay? Including relationship with self. Because think about this.

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25:35

If we go back to what we see right here, I can actually do this. How related is our relationship with self when it comes to that? Right? When it comes to relationship with self, the way that I want you to think about this right now, in this moment, if you're here with me, and especially if you've got the worksheet, what do you know about yourself?

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26:03

How well do you know yourself? How well do you know your thought patterns? How well do you understand your own emotional world? How well do you know and really understand, and I'm going to say even appreciate your own nervous system?

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26:23

How well do you know yourself and within that? How well do you love yourself? How much do you have an appreciation for who you are in all of your humanness, all of your faults, flaws, weaknesses, fears.

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26:44

Because what I'll tell you is this. Your relationship with self is absolutely the most crucial piece of creating change. And listen, it doesn't have to be there for change to happen. We need to have a seed of it.

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27:08

We need to have a little bit of it. And then the way change happens and rolls out and continues is by continuing to strengthen that relationship with self, continuing to strengthen that unconditional love of self for self.

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27:29

And truly, transforming your relationship with yourself allows you to be more honest about what's working and what's not, more honest about what's true and what's not. And it's going to allow you to actually be willing to do what it takes to create change because you care enough about yourself and your future to make it happen.

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27:57

So the relationship with self is how well do you know yourself? How well do you love yourself? How well do you partner with yourself? Do you create support for yourself? And are you willing over and over again to say, I matter enough to show up for myself and create this change so that my life can be unbelievable.

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28:28

All right. Let's go ahead and wrap up. As I mentioned, willpower is not the way. It is not the way. Okay. Environment matters when it comes to creating change and creating change in the easiest possible way.

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28:47

You've got to have support. You've got to have safety in your relationships and systems help. One of the most powerful things for my master coaches as they are implementing this change for themselves is that master coach training is done through a trauma-informed lens.

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29:07

Everything is about creating safety, safety in the body, safety in the community. And when we can feel safe, when you, I want you to think about this, when you can feel safe enough in your mentorship, safe enough with your coach, safe enough in a community.

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29:32

When you can feel safe enough to speak up and ask for help, feel safe enough to be honest about where you're struggling, and feel safe enough to be vulnerable and just think about what's possible. And as I'm saying this, I'm thinking about all the times that I've needed help or I've had a question and haven't known the answer.

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30:01

I've had imposter syndrome. And instead of speaking up and admitting it and raising my hand, I stay quiet because I'm afraid. I'm not feeling safe. And so this is why safety for you, safety in community, safety in your mentorship, safety with whoever it is that is helping you to create change.

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30:28

It absolutely has to be there. It has to be there. Okay. So your inner world is everything when it comes to change. Okay. And yes, change matters. So you're here right now because you want to know, right?

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30:44

Can people really change? Can that guy that I've seen do the same things his whole life? Can he change? He can change, but we don't need to worry about him. Right now, we're going to focus on you. And change is possible and change matters.

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30:56

And this is why. This is why change matters. When you change your relationship patterns, having greater ease and connection and authenticity becomes possible. It opens the door to you being more present with others, being a better parent, being a better partner.

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31:24

It allows you to actually feel the true deep connection that we all create. When you can change the patterns of how you show up and engage in your business plan, what's possible? Anxiety can decrease.

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31:43

Self-confidence can grow. The steps can become more strategic. When you create change with your body, with your health, in your relationship with yourself, it means you're living a life where you're showing up for yourself every single day, accepting yourself exactly where you are, and you're actually able to consistently take the steps to create the sense of well-being and the life that you really want.

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32:18

That's what I've got for you. I cannot wait to dive in with you next week on mind mastery. What does it mean? What does it mean to understand your own thoughts? What does it mean to understand your beliefs?

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32:31

And what does it mean in the context of this bigger picture? So for decades and decades, we've been wondering and asking the question, right, is change possible? We know the answer. Unequivocally, the answer is yes.

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32:43

And what I'm going to be sharing with you in these coming episodes is how to make change happen for you. How to make change possible for your clients as you become a phenomenal coach in support of lasting change.

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33:00

All right, that's what I've got for you. I'll see you all next time.