Leading with Compassion: 4 Principles to Adopt When Navigating Fear or Uncertainty

It’s more important now than ever for us to come together.

Connecting as people, we have to learn to communicate with others who have differing beliefs and opinions, without an agenda to persuade or convince that we are “in the right”.

What if we led with compassion and kindness?

Today I’m sharing with you 4 principals I’ve learned that have helped me show up and connect with others through challenging times.  While these may be common sense, they are often not practiced, especially when it comes to communication in our virtual world.

1. Assume good intent.
2. Listen to understand and connect. 
3. Follow the golden rule 
4. Ask yourself “What opportunity does this create?”

May these simple, yet powerful principals remind us to lead with compassion.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

You're listening to Finding Your It Factor- Episode# 30. Today we're talking about how to lead with compassion and I'm sharing four principles to adopt when navigating fear or uncertainty. Here we go.

Speaker 2: 0:12

Have you ever wondered how some people just seem to have a way with words? They have this spark that lights you up when you're near them. They have the It factor and while most people think it's something that only a few are born with, I believe that you can find it so it can become your super power to grow your business. It's about you bringing your brand to life by becoming a magnetic communicator in person and on camera, showing up with confidence, authenticity, and inspiration. So are you ready to become magnetic? I thought so. I'm Heather Sager and I'd like to welcome you to Finding Your It Factor.

Speaker 1: 0:59

Welcome back to another episode of Finding Your It Factor. I am your host, Heather Sager, and I am so happy that you've chosen to tune in this week. Typically, I start every episode with I'm thrilled and I'm excited and I am, but also I have to acknowledge that first, this was not the episode that I had planned to record or to release this week. I had another episode ready to go and last minute I decided that I needed to take a little bit of a different direction given what's happening in our world. So if you're catching this within, I mean the live time, this drops, you know, it's the week of March 16th this is coming out on March 18th I'm actually recording this on Monday the 16th because I wanted to change the message of what I was sharing today, given what's happening in our world with our global health crisis. Now, this is not going to be another episode or another talk around the Corona virus. However, I do think it opens up some opportunity for us to start thinking about how we navigate times of uncertainty, times of crisis. I think oftentimes it's situations like these that allow us to see how we show up for ourselves and others and it gives us opportunity to reflect not only how we communicate, but just how our thoughts dictate our realities. So there were a couple things that we'll, there's a lot of things, but a few things that came to mind when I've been reflecting on what's transpired in this last week. First, just thinking through one week ago today I was at home getting ready to pack up to go on an airplane to go to San Diego, which I did for a mastermind. Beyond that trip was the last sense of normalcy that I had. After that, things have just been a little bit falling off the rockers for so many, so many businesses, especially those in the speaking world. Events are being cancelled left and right last week and then it was actually mandated that most events have now been canceled. Events over 250 people, events as small as 50 people. Most organizations are making the determination to cancel those even before the restrictions came into place, which means as a speaker or someone in the speaking world, it puts a big halt on how business runs. And I think this is a time where some will get really scared and uncertain and make really rash decisions and others will sweep things under the rug and say that, Oh, it's totally going to be fine. We just have to get through it. And I think the conversation that I'd like to have today is how we embrace compassion in our lives. Now, compassion means a lot of things to different people, but in the context of this today, there's been something that has been on my heart for actually a few years that I hadn't figured out the best way to voice this in content online. And I felt this was a interesting opportunity to talk about this. So over the last few years, I've noticed a shift happening online when it comes to discussions. You've probably experienced this too. The last political, presidential political election, it was fascinating how polarizing we saw our nation. For those of you in the U.S. and even around the world we saw this, but how polarizing conversations became between strangers but also between families where you noticed if somebody had an opinion that another person didn't believe in, it would escalate very quickly. People were name calling, very colorful, very aggressive conversations. We're servicing online and the surface of quote unquote trolling, which tended to be a thing that so many of us just kind of swept under the rug. It's like, Oh, those aren't real people. We found that a lot of times our friends and families and neighbors were the ones vocally participating online. There were probably situations where you may have participated in some of those angry conversations online because you couldn't understand why someone else thought or believed that way that they thought. It's interesting, this world of social media and being so connected online, it's given us the ability to connect with people from so many different backgrounds, so many different beliefs, so many different corners of the world, but a skill that we have somehow forgotten is how to communicate with others who have differing opinions and beliefs than us. And I think the internet has allowed for conversations to happen, which is a beautiful thing, but also it unearths a very hurtful thing that happens in conversations online where I think we tend to forget that there is a human on the other side of the other computer screen. So we've lost our, we've lost our compassion and I haven't quite been sure exactly how to navigate this conversation, but what I noticed this last week is I saw this same polarizing aggressive behavior that showed up in the last presidential election. I saw it. We've seen it show up in a variety of things, whether it's politics or religion or race or the me too movement, or whether or not you see the dress as white and gold or navy blue and black. We have a tendency to get extremely passionate and colorful with our language when we disagree with another person. The crazy part to me are these conversations are happening not only between strangers but between families online. I saw it happen this week, this past week around the evolution of the Corona virus expanded into parts of the United States where we noticed that some people were getting very concerned and scared and started stockpiling, started vocalizing their fears and others bashing them for it. Making memes, making a mockery of people even considering that we were headed towards somewhere scary and vice versa the people who were preparing, the people who were scared, the people who were taking this seriously were frustrated and aggravated at those who weren't. It didn't matter what side of the fence you sat on and honestly it's evolved a lot in the last seven days, but you saw a lack of compassion online between people who were just trying to show up and live life and they were trying to help one another. The people who were scared were trying to shake the internet for the people who weren't trying to rattle in some reason to them and give them a heads up and the people who were not concern we're trying to get the people who were so stressed out over it to calm the F- down. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing. I think both sides had good intentions, but I think oftentimes our lack of tact and our lack of compassion makes it difficult for someone who doesn't believe the way we believe to hear us. I think my examples of talking about the presidential election and talking about what's happening right now with the Corona virus and our global health crisis, I think it's easy for us to see these things when it's so apparent of how aggressive these conversations can get online. But I think we also see these types of aggressions happen every day in our world, every day in our lives, and I think our connectivity online has contributed to that. But also I think we've lost the ability a bit to argue and debate and have healthy, productive conversations with people who view things differently from us. And my friend, that's the conversation that I wanted to introduce today because I think the secret to becoming a magnetic communicator, the secret to being a leader of which people want to follow you is one, attracting people who are not exactly like you. It's attracting people who have different views and opinions and it's your ability to navigate difficult conversations even when it's hard, even when it feels jockey, but being able to rise into them in a way that's respectful and compassionate and for the benefit of the people that you serve. So I think having difficult conversations, having the ability to communicate effectively with people who don't think like you, love like you, act like you at people who are different from you, I think that's really, really important. And I think one of the things that we forget is how beautiful it is to have people who are unlike us in our lives. I mean, just think about how bland our lives would be if everyone around us saw things not only look just like us, but they saw things the exact same way that we saw. If everybody had the exact same political views, religious views, anything that you can think of, preferences, opinions, if we all thought the exact same way, there wouldn't be any room for creative ideas or outside of the box thinking we wouldn't be challenging the status quo. I think about some of the most influential people in the world. They wouldn't have maybe impact they made if they would have thought just like everyone else. As I was preparing for this episode, some of the people that came to mind that create a significant change, Martin Luther King Jr. I mean, imagine if he would have thought and felt and voiced his opinion the same way as everyone else around him and not been bold enough to step out in a different world, step out in a different way. Margaret Thatcher, Britain's first female prime minister, which paved a path for so many women behind her. Bill Gates, if he would've thought the same way as everyone else. Would we have the computer in front of us? Would we have the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. Gandhi, Christopher Columbus, Oprah, which it sounds very funny to say Christopher Columbus and Oprah back to back. But come on, these people did not think and feel and show up in the same way of other people around them. In fact, they all receive so much scrutiny and hate and so many other negative things thrown at them because they thought differently than another people. And I think in our world, we want differences of opinions, but we don't like it when people disagree with us because here's something that's so fascinating and working with so many of my clients and students, one of the things I work with them on is to help them understand that the way that they think, the way that they see their businesses, the way that they see life is unique. It's different than the people that they're teaching. So oftentimes I have to help them understand that the way that they think, they think it's so easy, they think what they're doing is so logical, but it's not because they think differently than other people. And I think it's really important for us all to recognize is the things that seems so logical for each of us. They're logical because they're nested in our own brains, in our own worlds, and no one else has had experiences and had life work the way that it has for us. So to expect that other people believe and see things just like us, it's kind of crazy town. So I want to encourage you to embrace this idea of going back to some of the basics that I hope we all learned when we were children. And understanding that creating a world, creating relationships, creating a business, creating the lives that are fueled with respect for others and valuing others conflicting views is a really beautiful, powerful and necessary thing. And I think what's interesting is in our world where differing opinions is sometimes encouraged but not when they're deferring your opinion. I think we have to develop a tolerance for others to disagree with that, but we have to rise above that. We need to create more than just a tolerance for other people's opinions and beliefs. We need to embrace them and welcome them and be hungry for them. And I think for us to be able to do that, we have to focus on something bigger and that is that. I think this is a variable thing to say, but I think we've lost, we've lost a little bit of the love for humanity. And I know that sounds super cheesy, but in a world that's so focused on achievements, and ambition and goal setting, just cut throat moving forward, do your thing. I think oftentimes that comes with a degree of blinders that have, maybe I'm just speaking for, I'm going to speak for myself here for a moment, but I feel like our world has groomed us that relationships often need to be built if they're supporting your goals and dreams, meaning build the relationships if it's serving you and your goals and your achievements. That's how I operated for a very long time where relationships were part of fueling me getting forward. I am so grateful that it's not how I believe anymore. I've learned that relationships are this richness to our lives, that how we experience life and they're how we experience and enjoy the achievements and the goals that we chase. But if we're so focused on the achievements and being right, I think we miss the opportunity for the love that is around each of us. The love in our personal relationships, in our business relationships, in our communities, both our physical communities, our online communities. There is so much opportunity for connection with people and I think it's really off. I think it's really common to miss it.

: 16:28

So I want to share with you a few of the principles that I have adopted over my years. Transitioning from this achievement goal focused mentality into feeling fulfilled in my life, feeling loved in my relationships, feeling, feeling like I was living with my family and my friends. And I think what's interesting is some of these principles, as you will hear in a moment, they are things we all learned as kids or I hope that we learned as kids. And if not, I'd love to share with them with you today. But they're very, they're very common sensical. My favorite Will Rogers quotes, you hear me say this over and over and over again, just because it's common sense doesn't mean it's common practice. And my friend, I want to challenge us all, especially in times of uncertainty, in a polarizing climate. I want to challenge us to start practicing these common sense principles so that way we can nurture and build the relationships around us in a way that fulfills our life, not just propels us to that next achievement milestone. So I'd love to share with you these four principles. Number one, assume good intent. Okay. This might sound pretty straight forward, but I can't tell you how meaningful this one phrase was to me back when I was working in the corporate world. Assume good intent. I think a lot of times as we're living our lives and our businesses, when we see someone taking action that is different than the actions we would take or someone conflicting with our opinion, I think it's easy to discount or discredit that other person in front of us. They're not smart enough, they're not experienced enough. They're not insert whatever word you want to enough. And I think we in a pursuit of building and preserving our own egos, we discredit other people and assume that their agendas are self serving. But of course ours are never self-serving. We're always doing it for the good of humanity. Right? But for some reason, our minds trick us into thinking that other people are in it for some other secret agenda. I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I operated a lot like this in the corporate world thinking that others were quite frankly dumb sometimes like making stupid decisions left and right and I didn't understand because in my brain it was so clear and logical the next step. I couldn't even fathom why someone would make a different decision when it was so freaking clear. Oh my gosh, what-? How dumb of me, how sad, I honestly thought that, and I'm embarrassed to say that, but also I want to tell you that and hopes that you won't think less of me for saying that, but I know others who are listening, I think you've thought this too. I think you felt this too. I think that you've had moments where you've thought that you're better than someone else, that you're smarter than somewhere else, you're more equipped than someone else and you may have thought that other people's intentions were not good. Even if you weren't able to vocalize that, that was the underlining thing is that they were in it for themselves or there was some hidden agenda there. Friend, let me give you a gift right now. When you operate life, assuming that other people have bad intentions, whether you're cautious of this of not, you are setting yourself up for so much drama, so much freaking drama that if you embrace this one idea that assuming those around you always have good intentions, it is the most beautiful gift you can give yourself because you free yourself up from any of those dramatic conversations in your head or with other people about that person and you start focusing on what needs to have focus on it. And let me give you a really clear practical example of this. I have a very vivid memory of my mom and I when I was a kid driving down a highway in my hometown and there was this moment were it's a four lane highway, we're on the far right lane and this car jets out in front of us and cuts us off. And my mom just like so many of their moms. So it's that moment where she reaches over you or over me and does like the mom seatbelt with the arms crossed across my chest to block cause she had hit the brakes so hard and it was scary. This car pulled out of nowhere in front of us and if it hadn't have been for her quick reaction, we probably would have hit this car. But I will never forget the words that came out of my mom's mouth. She said they probably didn't see us. They probably didn't see us. In that moment, my mom chose to assume good intent by that driver. Instead of calling the driver a colorful four letter word, which by the way, my mom never swore so she wouldn't do that. But instead of mumbling under her breath or yelling or giving them the finger as so many drivers would, she said they probably didn't see us. Other times I saw people cut off my mom in line. I saw people do dumb things and I remember my mom always coming up with a reason why those people must be acting that way. You know what? They probably have a sick kid at home. They're probably having a bad day. They might be X, Y, and Z. My mom instilled this quality in me that I forgot somewhere along the way, but I'm very glad that in the last few years I've really gotten this quality back.

Speaker 1: 22:43

I'm getting emotional just talking about it, but how much more beautiful would life be if we all just assumed that when somebody showed up in a moment, they weren't at their best? What if we just assumed they were having a bad day and not judging them or berating them for it or calling them an idiot or thinking any other negative thing of judgment that we might think, what if instead we just chose what if they're having a bad day? What if they have incredible intentions, but they're just off today? I want you to think about this for a moment of how free that would be for your life and your world. It is a really, really beautiful thing. So assume good intent always even when people's actions might tell you otherwise. What if you assumed good intent? I think this is a beautiful thing and I encourage you to see how this might fit in your life. Now let me also give a little asterisks with this one because I think this is really important. We also don't to assume good intent or we don't want to assume good intent if someone is consistently over and over doing hurtful things. So I want to make sure that I'm clear here. This is not an excuse to sweep someone's bad behavior towards you or someone else under the rug. That is not what I'm saying at all. So if your verbally abused by another person, or someone is manipulating the situation, or there's something happening with a certain person over and over again, that is completely something different here. What I'm saying is if you have a tendency to automatically go to a negative place that of course this person is doing something because X, Y, and Z. This is a good opportunity for you to revisit that and saying, are you really, are you assuming that their intentions are negative based off of some story you've created in your head? Or do you know it to be true based off of pattern. They're different things. What I'm encouraging you is to notice the first is when your narrative is clouding your perception of an interaction in front of you. Assuming good intent. Try this on and see if it fits for you, but I know for me this was a very powerful thing and changing the way I showed up to conversations with certain people. Okay. Principle number two, listen to understand and connect not to wait for your turn to talk. I'm sure you've heard of this before, listening to actually hear someone not listening, just waiting for your turn to jump in. I think this is a really powerful thing to consider, not only in the polarizing climates I talked about at the top of this episode, but just in everyday conversations. So many of us have lost the skill of listening or we've, we never really had it in the first place. So if there is any one thing I could teach you today, it is embracing this and that is really think about how your listening to other people. Are you listening to others who have a different opinion, a differing opinion of you just so you can collect the crumbs on the ground that they leave so you can shove it back in their face and shoot, show them why they're wrong or show them why your line of thinking is better. If that's the case, that's not listening to understand and truly connect with other people. You're just listening so that you can have your turn to share your opinion. I think this is a really powerful thing to consider because I think oftentimes we think about the listening as the mindless head nodding over someone just to jump in and cut them off. But there is this other sneaky thing which is a tactic used in sales where you're just listening for the intention to get juicy stuff that someone says so you can throw it back in their face, but in a sexy way. I want you to be cautious of this. I want you to think about what would it look like for you to actually listen to understand. Then if it makes sense and you're able to build on the conversation. If it is a sales conversation, build upon what they share with you and create a picture of what's possible based on the conversation. That's a beautiful thing, but if you're just listening to pick up crumbs so that you can sell them. That is not, that is not listening to understand and connect. A beautiful quote, one of my former mentors, or current mentor, Brandon Dawson, I've referenced him a couple of times. He'd my old boss from my old company I worked with. A phrase he used to say all the time which has always stuck with me is when you're talking, you're pushing. When you're asking, you're pulling. When you're talking, you're pushing and when you're asking, you're pulling. And I think this is so important when it comes to building relationships in life and in business. The art of asking questions, the art of listening to other people, it is more connecting than anything else. People love to talk about themselves and they love to share some more freely than others. But if you have some great questions to pull people in towards you, you strengthen that connection with them. When you're just sharing your opinion and talking at someone, you're actually pushing them away. So I want you to think about this idea of listening. How do you listen and understand someone from where they're coming from? This is especially important when we think about some of those things I mentioned before around somebody with differing political opinions, somebody with differing opinions around how we're managing this current health crisis. I want you to understand, if you haven't, let me actually grab it. I want to read you this quote this real quick cause it is super, super powerful. Okay. I ran downstairs real quick cause I wanted to grab this. This is a quote I have from one of the downloads that came with the Miracle Morning and it's affirmations that you can read to yourself every day about creating Level 10 relationships. And I want to read you this specific quote because I think it is really powerful here. Creating level 10 relationships. For my family, friends and significant other to my coworkers and even strangers. I will love all people unconditionally because that is how we all deserve to be loved. I refuse to judge others because I recognize that I have no way of knowing that had I lived another person's life. I might talk and act exactly the same way. I also understand that the more value I add to the lives of others, the more value that I will reciprocate. So I will focus on adding as much value as I can to enrich the lives of every person I come in contact with. Just realize I'm a little winded talking about that because that was a big flight up and down the stairs. But this quote has been so powerful for me. I read it every single morning and I wanted to read it for you today because I think this, this one line in here, I recognize that I have no way of knowing that had I lived another person's life, I might talk and exactly the same way. Friend, it is so easy to be focused on the opinion or belief that you want to share with another person because in your mind it is so right that you cannot fathom why they would see or believe anything different. But you're missing a critical piece of this and that's perspective. They haven't lived your life, they haven't had your experiences. They've had their own and their experiences in their lives are just as valuable as yours. So for you to think that your opinion is more important than theirs, it's just disrespectful and I'm sorry to be a little bold with that, but that's the real thing. Like you got to check your ego at the side and understand that other people's opinions and beliefs are just as valid as yours. So stop trying to change them. Stop trying to shove your beliefs and opinions on other people because yours are so quote unquote right. Other people have the right to their opinion. So when you're having conversations, what would it look like if you listened and asked questions without the intention of trying to change their opinions? How could the conversation go without taking offense or getting criticized or criticizing how they feel, how you feel, what have you just had a conversation and talked. This can be a really powerful thing. I think one in our world, but two, if you think about tactically this every single day, how would this transform your relationship when you are negotiating with vendors. When you're in sales conversations with clients instead of trying to convince them or argue with them around how you're right and they're wrong. What have you just had a conversation and tried to understand the way they think and feel. Then maybe you could offer solutions and sure you can paint a picture around how someone can see things differently, but you ultimately can't determine whether or not they're going to change their beliefs only they can. So it would behoove you, let's use a fancy word here, for you just to understand, because at the end of the day, you can't convince someone if they don't feel heard and seen. So listening is the most important way that we can connect and build true relationships with other people, so do not undervalue this one. So my tip for you is start paying attention to how you listen and lead conversations. Ask and listen more than you talk. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at just how powerful this one skill can become. Principle number three, follow the golden rule. There was this video I watched as a kid. I cannot remember what the video it is, but it was adults in a play. It was a very churchy thing growing up. But I remember this video very, very vividly and there was a song in it about the golden rule. It was just ingrained to me as a child. I think oftentimes we forget about the golden rule when it comes to relationships. And the example that I want to use for you today when thinking about the current environment that we're in, I mentioned before a lot of speakers, a lot of us in business are having an unprecedented thing happen. I mean this is very unprecedented and it's creating conversations that are, that need to be handled very delicately. Let me give you a couple examples. Last week I had a client call and they canceled the live event that I was supposed to be consulting at this last weekend. Then on Friday I had another client call and ask to switch my speaking event to be virtual. Neither of them have asked for their money back, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did. I have so many students and clients across the board that I'm seeing online of people having speaking event or contracts canceled left and right. Now, let me tell you, if you're a business owner, you most likely have contracts and agreements in place which most likely protect you and your deposits. So for me, in both of these situations, my deposits are locked tight. The contracts are locked tight that if the client cancels, I mean there's technically still out the money, but also I am a person who exercises compassion and I understand that the golden rule lives more importantly at times of crisis than any given day, but I practice those rules every single day in my business. So right now for example, with my clients, I am exercising compassion and I'm asking the question, how can this be a win win for both of us? That might look like different things for different people, for different contracts. For one contract it might be moving into a virtual environment and maybe adding in some bonuses because they're not getting me in person. For another contract, that might mean we changed the date and there's no penalty, there's no whatever situation with it. We just changed the date because that's what needs to happen. For one of my students, that might mean we look at her payment options and we extended a bit because her business was impacted drastically by the last five days. I'm using these as an example for you because what I want you to start thinking about is sometimes in business it's easy for us to hide behind our terms and conditions, agreements and contracts. And while I'm a big believer, you got to have that locked in tight, you have to have agreements and conditions in place 100%, but also leave room for being human because what happens in the moment where something goes wrong and you're on the other end of it? What if all the sudden your largest contract falls through and you're out of cash? When you call your vendors or you call your partners, would you want them to exercise some compassion? I mean there's no guarantee they will, but I'm a big believer of working with people who you jive with, working with people who have similar beliefs and values of you when it comes to these kinds of principles, I think if you have relationships with people, they're going to work with you. And I think this requires a level of creative thinking on both sides. And for me it always starts with a question, how can this be a win win? So I think this is very timely right now with what's happening right now, but I also want you to think, how could this apply day to day in your business? So for example, let's say, and I actually see this example a lot in different Facebook groups that I'm in. Let's say a customer signs up for your program or buys one of your products and they're unhappy with it and they send a note to you and asking for a refund. How do you handle this? Do you hem and haw over it for days? Taking every word that they said to heart and trying to analyze it and trying to justify for them why they're wrong or why they were the ones that were faulty at this. If they didn't do the work and just putting all this time and energy into it and then going into a Facebook group and asking other people what would they do with this situation? And I'm sorry to be blunt, if you've ever done this before, I think I've probably done this in other ways before, but here's the thing. The more energy you put into exhausting that situation, the less energy you're able to put into the people who are happy with how you're serving them. So in moments where for example, someone's asking for a refund, you have to ask yourself, what's the true cost here? What's the true cost of following through and saying, Hey, technically my contract says I don't have to get a refund. You could do that and then you're going to hem and haw over it and you're going to write back this very assertive email telling them why they don't qualify for the refund or what would happen if you just freed yourself from and then just refunded them. I don't know. I don't know what answer is right for you and your business is not as black and white, but what I do want to bring up is how do you exercise compassion and follow the golden rule and put your energy in the right places during difficult times in business, whether it's a full on crisis or it's just one of the hiccups that happen every single day in business. People are going to ask for refunds. Think through in advance how you're going to handle it when you're not close to it and emotional. I think if you put all that time and energy elsewhere, meaning for positive change for the people who are actually happy that you can serve just a little bit more, I don't know. For me that would be a much better use of my energy than going down a rabbit hole griping and complaining about the one person who complained about one specific thing. So follow the golden rule, have lock tight contracts agreements, all of those things in place, but also be human and trust your gut and make the decisions that feel good to you and make business sense. It's important in a time of crisis, but it's important every single day as you show up in business and relationships. Alright, final principle number four, and this is my favorite. Also slightly controversial at a time like this and that is asking yourself, what opportunity does this create? You've heard me ask this question before on prior episodes. It is one of my favorites and I continually challenged myself with this question on almost a daily basis. Then when something goes wrong or not according to plan or is extremely challenging or extremely trying, asking myself the question, what opportunity does create is a powerful way for me to take back control of what I can control and leave what I can't. Now I want to be tender in how I talk about this because I am not saying how can I capitalize on this global crisis which side note, you may have noticed that there seems to be those who are trying to capitalize on what's happening. Some are doing it respectfully, some are doing it disrespectfully. How do I phrase that? I'm not telling you, Hey, crap has hit the fan. How the hell do you go out and make some money? It's funny that I said crap, but I said hell, you know, that was funny there that I throw in some swear words sometimes, but other times not. There's no rhyme or reason to that. Side note to the tangents, those of you who've been with me awhile, you know I have a lot of side tangents. Back to it. I think what I'm trying to bring up here is you get to choose every single day how you show up and stuff is going to happen. It's going to happen day in and day out. Sometimes it's going to be a big thing. Sometimes it's just going to be a small annoying thing, but the end of the day you get to choose what you do with the hand that life deals you. I experienced this so many times in my life, but no time more defined for me than the year my mom died. So if you've been with me awhile, you know that my mom was diagnosed with cancer when I was in high school. I was a freshman. And I remember when she had that diagnosis, I told no one, none of my friends. I want to do ignore it and choose that it wasn't happening around me. So the way I reacted was I didn't, I just pretended life was normal and it just went on. And then my sisters who chose to handle things a little bit differently, I remember they decided to shave their heads like buzz cut, totally hair gone. They shaved their heads with my mom. They were all older than me and one of my sisters showed up to one of my high school football games and all my friends are like, dude, why you shave your head? And she's like with mom. And they're all staring at her confused, looking at me confused. And I remember being mortified because I hadn't told them. Well, fast forward my mom was went to remission. And then it came back and metastasized to her liver my senior year in high school. And I had to make a choice again what this thing was happening, like it or not, and it was terminal. They gave her six months to live and in that moment I had to make a choice and I chose to be vocal about it. I chose to continue to live my life and show up as a cheerleader at my high school football games. I remember that before one football game was the night that we shaved my mom's head again and I remember wearing my highschool chearleeding uniform with a vacuum in my hand, vacuuming the hair as my sister and dad shaved my mom's head. I remember sharing with my classmates at school that I'd be doing my community service project for my senior year. We all had to pick this one thing that we've focused on. I remember choosing it to be on my mom and breast cancer awareness, which was very controversial because the teachers at school knew that my mom was on her death bed and I would have to present about my project potentially about my dead mother, which didn't really seem like a recipe for success with a very vulnerable 17 year old teenager. My family chose just to navigate through that really difficult time by starting a nonprofit foundation, which we ran for 10 years about educating our local area about complimentary medicine and how it fit in with cancer therapies specifically for breast cancer treatment. At that time, back in 2001 holistic and natural treatment wasn't something that was mainstream and well talked about. There was actually quite a polarizing debate between medical communities and the natural world. No, I tell you all of this, not because I want have this moment of like, Whoa is me. Crap happens. People have terrible things happen in their lives. I don't wish that upon anyone and I definitely didn't handle the situation probably as good as I could, but I'm damn proud of how my family and I handled it because while some families might grow apart, our family grew together. We went through the most difficult year of our lives, but we chose love. We chose moving forward. We chose to control what we could control. For us, it was coming together and we had that foundation which we poured our heart and souls into is more I think of a grieving process than anything. But I shared this with you today because I think regardless of if your mom dies or you get diagnosed with cancer or there's this crappy thing where now you're in quarantine with your kids for five days, which I feel you. It is, shout out to the stay at home moms out there. I know you're giving us all a nod going like welcome to our world. Whatever it looks like for you, when change happens, when something enters the scene that is different, whether it's scary or whatever emotion that comes with it, you get to choose how you react and that reaction is 100% yours that nobody else can take away from you, but it would be stupid to act like you can't control your own reaction. I think that in itself is destructive and I think it's powerless and I think it's shameful. I think each one of us, 100% gets to choose our emotions and reactions at any given time, no matter what happens around us, that is truth. Our beliefs lead to what we're thinking about and what we're thinking about we create the emotion from those and then we lead into actions and our actions create a results. It's a powerful thing. I think we don't give as much credit to ourselves as we should in terms of our emotions are within our own control. Our way that we react to things are within our control. It is. That's what I believe and it's backed up by so much. There's this incredible model that Brooke Castillo talks about at the life coach school. Her podcast, by the way, is amazing. She talks about this all the time, and I think a lot of times we chalk up our emotions to external things, but our emotions come from the inside and our thinking drives them. So through not only this time of change, this time of scariness, this time of uncertainty, choose how you show up and if you're scared, that's okay. If you're uncertain, that's okay. If you're choosing to bunker down and you're like, man, more time at home, away from people, let me get some shit done. That's okay. However you're choosing to approach the situation, it's completely and totally fine, but don't poop on other people for having a different opinion or belief than you. This goes with where we're at right now, but this goes in everyday life and in business. Remember, you don't know that you would act or think anything differently if you had acted and lived in somebody else's shoes. So in this time, right now, I want you to see what opportunities this just create. This is give you more time with your kids. This is time for you to pick up a book and finally read it. Is this give you time and space for you to map out that new podcast you've been wanting to do for years? Does this give you time and space to connect with your clients in a way that you haven't for awhile? Have you fallen off the email wagon? Is this the time where you can start writing some emails to get things going and getting back engaged with your email list? Find what opportunities this creates for you. It does not need to be this overly thought out thing. It just needs to be some kind of action that you're in control of that you can take. I think we always have an element of control in our lives. It's just whether or not we view to see it as that.

: 48:50

So whether or not we're living in a global health crisis, this is a time, it's a shakeup. It's a wake up call for all of us that I think, I think we all get really comfortable living our own lives at our own pace, focused on our own goals or own dreams, our whole new hardships, our own desires. But it's a moment like this where our, quote unquote normal is completely shut down and halted and we're forced to change with the shutdowns, with the quarantines, wherever you are in the world, that might look different from you, but what it reminds me of is at the end of the day, we're all still human and I think if we let a little bit more of that humanity come out, it's only going to make our world a stronger and better place once we get through this and every day after. So I hope that you choose unity through this isolation. I hope that you choose empathy and understanding and compassion over judgment. I hope you choose joy over fear, whatever that looks like for you and your family. Just know I'm sending you so much love through this time as we wade through this together. And my commitment to you is to keep showing up. I'll keep being honest and I'm going to keep thinking of you every single day. I hope that these principles have given you a perspective to remind you to show up for yourselves, your customers, your audience, your family, not just in times of crisis but every single day. And I hope that it's given you a perspective to remind you what matters most. And that's going back to the basis of how we build relationships fundamentally as people. Friend, I'll see you again. Same time, same place next week.

Speaker 2: 50:30

Guys, thanks so much for listening to Finding Your It Factor and Hey, if you have a talk coming up, you have to check out my free resource. It's calledNail Your Next Talk. 10 must ask questions before taking the stage so you can show up as an authority and turn that talk into future business. These are the questions that I use myself to prepare for my life talks and they're going to help you ask the right questions of the person who booked you for the event. So the meeting planner or the client, and it's going to help you serve your audience to the best way possible. It's going to help you anticipate potential tech or 80 snags. Turn the Q&A time into a strategic place for content and make this speaking opportunity, a lead generator for your business. So go get it now. What are you waiting for? It's over at heathersager.com/10questions[inaudible].