Ep 167: Do Less Be More

Welcome to the Blume Your Mind Podcast where we take all of your ideas for what you want

and we turn them into real things.

I'm your host, Certified Coach Marie McDonald, let's get into it.

Hello everybody and welcome to the Blume Your Mind Podcast.

I am coming to you today from Monterey up in Northern California where I've been at a

speaking event and it's so beautiful up here.

It is so sunny and so lovely and I've been walking on the beach in between doing the

speaking event meeting with people and then working.

I kind of used this little escape up here as a little writing retreat for a few different

things I have going on for our podcast of course in some classes and retreat planning

because the Moxie Mastermind retreat is about to happen in the next month and I'm so

excited about it.

We have some spots open for people that are not in the Moxie that are joining us and I

just can't wait to have everybody together for that retreat.

So I wanted to talk today about doing less and being more and I've had this on my list

of episodes to make because I see it so often in my own clients and in myself and in women

in the Moxie Mastermind.

It comes up so frequently as something that pops up specifically for women but I'm sure

this also is relevant for everybody where when we have anything that we're showing up to

in our life, whether that's in our work and our personal life with our families, many

of us tend to feel like we have to do a lot, like we have to have a lot set up, we have

to show up, we have to have plans, we have to have programming, we have to have rehearsed

what we're going to do, we have to have thought things through, we have to know what we're

going to wear, we have to prepare and do a lot and I have faced this in my own life over

and over again and I have some stories to tell you about that but the reason I'm talking

about this is because I see a huge gender imbalance in this thinking.

So if you look statistically at men, they are much more likely to apply for jobs that

they're not qualified for and just put their foot forward, believe in themselves, talk

about how they'll approach the job and get the job, whereas women are much less likely

statistically to apply for jobs that they're underqualified for.

And this is indicative of this whole genre of thinking where we as women have been socialized

to believe that we need to over prepare, that we need to be overqualified, that we need

to provide value through service and again, if you are not someone who identifies as female,

I am sure that this applies to you in different ways and the core piece that I want you all

to take from today is that you are valuable just by showing up and when you can get your

mindset into a place where you know that your value is inherent because you are you, because

you have a lived experience that is incredibly valuable and you can share from that experience

that your brain and the beautiful, the words that you will say, the perspectives you will

share, the things that you can create in the moment are incredibly valuable. Your companionship,

your company is incredibly valuable to people. Life becomes so much easier and so much less of a

hustle. So I have a few different ways that I want to talk to you about this. First of all,

this last week was a hustle. It was a hustle that I knew was coming because I had multiple

classes that I was teaching and then I was leading a speaking event on Sunday night in San Diego

that I needed to do a bunch of preparation for and then after that I was flying out at 10 p.m.

and coming up to Monterey for a speaking event that I was doing in the afternoon on Monday.

So it was a lot of preparation and what happened was on Wednesday of last week I got sick.

I was very cocky about this. I was like I never get sick. I always get the little like surface

symptoms and I never go down. I went down y'all and I had a fever for the first time since I don't

know since I was a kid and then it my symptoms sort of progressed and went into stomach aches,

all kinds of fluy symptoms and then a head cold and you can still hear it in my voice.

Here in the podcast it's been you know over a week and I still have a cough and I've been sneezing

and have this kind of head cold. So the reason I'm sharing that is because I had dramatically

less time to prepare because I was down. My kids were down. I did not. I was not able to prepare

last week in the ways that I like to prepare for speaking events. And so I had to dig deep into

my self-concept, my belief in myself to remind myself that I am enough. The irony here that I

always think about that cracks me up is like when I come to a podcast and I have a super solid plan

for what I'm going to say I feel so great. And sometimes when I especially in the beginning come

to a podcast for instance without a really solid plan I feel less prepared. I feel like what I'm

you know I have to think through the thoughts that pop up that whatever I'm going to say might not

be as valuable which is funny because I'm writing it either way. The content is coming out of my

mind whether I plan it in advance or whether I say it in the moment. But we tell ourselves that it's

not going to be as good if we don't write it in advance. Now sometimes that is true. For big

speaking events of course I want to have thought through exactly what I want to say I want to

prepare and sometimes being in the moment is even more valuable and I'll tell you I used to

over-prepare for retreats and workshops and speaking events. I used to memorize every single word.

And I would be leading like six workshops over the course of two days and I

literally would memorize every single word of the six workshops.

You all do not you can just imagine what that's like right and then after a two day retreat that I

was leading how exhausted I would be it was the good kind of exhausted where I loved what I was doing

and I you know put all this energy into it and was so tired and happy but it was a lot. Now

I got the feedback during those retreats and workshops that people you know from my colleagues

and my peers they said you know I wonder what it would be like if you didn't memorize everything

because my favorite times when you speak are when you're off the cuff and you're riffing.

My favorite times are when you're just

sharing from the heart and you you're making it up as you go along and I was shocked and I was so

outside of my comfort zone with just the idea of not preparing and memorizing everything

but I took that feedback to heart and I started pushing myself into a slightly more uncomfortable

zone. I started preparing a little bit less. I started going up and giving speeches and talks

with no preparation when it was like a toast or a spur of the moment opportunity to go speak and

I had done that many times but I was pushing myself to do that more. I pushed myself to have more

of my speaking events my podcasts my workshops unscripted so that I could be in the moment with

the people in front of me and I started doing that more in my personal life. I started preparing

a little bit less for gatherings with people. I started you know being a little bit more in the

moment with creating experiences with my family and friends and what I found is that that mindset

is has ripples everywhere when we know that our value is inherent because we exist. When we know

that we could show up to a conversation and event whatever it is that we're doing a presentation

and we know that we are valuable because of who we are it impacts so much more than whatever

that event is or that speaking opportunity and so what I want to invite you to do today is to look

at your life and look at where you're over preparing. Where do you think you need to do more that you

need to prove your value instead of just showing up and where can you push yourself into your yellow

zone just a little bit more and I'm going to tell you what that means and give you an invitation

to practice this this week. So what I mean by pushing yourself into your yellow zone is that we

all have a green zone that is our comfort zone. That green zone is where we are really comfortable

and the example of this is I used to be my green zone was memorizing every word. It's like if we do

that we know that we can show up at the speaking event I was actually presenting on presenting and

on public speaking and I was giving this talk and this workshop on it and one of the people said

that their green zone is they could speak to an audience of any size doesn't even matter thousands

as long as they are really really really prepared. Now we also have a yellow zone that yellow zone is

a place where we're not as comfortable but it's not terrifying. The yellow zone is a zone where we

could push ourselves a little bit out of our comfort zone and try to show up to whatever this

challenge is with a little bit of nerves maybe it's a little bit outside of our sweet spot.

Now we also have a red zone which is terrifying that would be you know showing up to the Super Bowl

half time show if we're afraid if we're afraid of public speaking or deciding that we're going to

start cooking and making our first foray into being a chef cooking a 12 course meal for 40 people.

That's the red zone it's terrifying usually if we want to push ourselves we don't want to push

ourselves into the red zone most of the time unless we're going to really prepare and comment it

strategically because if we push ourselves into the red zone often will prove to ourselves that we

should never push ourselves at all. So what we want to do is push ourselves into the yellow zone

and take on incremental challenges that are a little bit beyond our green zone to encourage us to

grow. We want to toggle back and forth between the green and the yellow zone because here's why.

If we only stay in our green zone our green zone shrinks we become less and less comfortable

and this applies to everything in our life. If you're only comfortable surfing tiny waves and you

keep only surfing tiny waves you you are going to become less and less comfortable on the size of

the wave will become smaller and smaller or you'll stay in this very small zone of comfort with a

size of wave that you're comfortable surfing. If you can push yourself up not to a tidal wave

not to a gigantic barreled wave but to a little bit of a bigger wave over time you will evolve

yourself in your comfort area your green zone will grow. This applies to making new friends. It

applies to putting yourself out there and talking to people that intimidate you. It applies to

not knowing people taking yourself out on a date traveling by yourself. It applies to everything.

So my invitation for you today is to identify where is your green zone with doing more

just doing a lot preparing making sure that you're providing value being of service doing doing doing

and where could you pull that back a little bit and expand into your yellow zone and do a little

bit less. Where can you show up and know that you're valuable just because you're there with fewer

plans doing less. The end result of my two speaking events is they were wonderful. I was a little

bit less prepared and they were better for it and I developed more confidence in myself to take

things as they come. I got great feedback. We laughed so much and great responses to both events.

So where can you push into your yellow zone and please tell me all about it because I love

to hear it. That's what I've got for you this week and I will see you next week.

If you like what you're hearing on the podcast you've got to come and join us in the

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them to real life in a community where we have each other's backs and we bring out the best in

each other. We're all there to make our ideas real. One idea at a time. We'll see in the Bloom Room.