Embracing Life's Design with Courage with Guest Nicoa

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It's a beautiful thing. I am so excited. I am really excited too.

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You don't know how much I need this conversation today.

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Oh, this conversation is going to make us all feel better. I just know it.

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Yay. We all need to feel better. You're 60. I'm 55. I just turned 55.

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I'm very excited. Oh, congrats. I feel like grandma. I'm 42 for anybody who

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wanted to know. You're how old? I missed it.

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42. 42? I know.

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You know what? what it was a really good year because I thought I was turning

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43 last year so when I turned 42 I was like this is everything exactly exactly

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so you know I'm ready for 43 now that was your dry run I know.

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Music.

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Yeah, I just had Red Bull. I'm ready for it. Okay, I got a Mountain Dew.

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You ready, G-Rex? Yeah, ready? G-Rex, Dirty Skittles, Nakoa. Yeah. We're all ready.

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Three, two, one. Welcome back to another episode of shit that goes on in our heads.

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I'm Dirty Skittles. And I'm G-Rex. And I'm Nakoa. What?

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I love that y'all just entertained me with that,

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well how's your day nicole you know it's good

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and i'll tell you why because i was busy

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i'm gonna throw a new new phrase out you guys are

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pretty cool you're cooler than me you've probably heard of this phrase but i

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was busy herkle derkling this morning that is guess what that means what does

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it mean herkle derkle is some sort of i think it's scottish it's for hanging

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Hanging out in the bed a little bit longer than you should be.

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I do that every day. I know, man. I'm like a Hercule D'Arco master now.

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So I'm like Hercule D'Arco-ing. And then finally, my husband,

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John, he was like, I'm going to go work out. And I was like, oh, good for you.

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Then he does. We have a Peloton, which we really do like it.

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He goes downstairs and he's working out. and I'm herkle-derkling until he texts and he goes, done.

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And I'm like, but I'm still herkle-derkling.

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But I got up after the herkle-derkle. I got up and you can maybe tell my face is still red.

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I did it. I did it. I did a boot camp.

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I've only, I mean, like I was, I had COVID two weeks ago.

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So doing two exercise days this week was like, that's like running a freaking marathon after COVID.

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I'm just. Yeah, I can imagine. imagine that so peloton like the bike yeah the

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bike and you know peloton has everything and it's sponsored but i know y'all

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would like to be sponsored by peloton shout out to peloton yeah they have mat

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like you can do a mat like you put your mat down you got weights you can do meditation,

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yoga boxing i pretty much do the boot camp because that's like whole body and

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i just like get it over within 30 minutes and i'm done like okay yeah but i'll

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tell you a story and other stuff we had a a Peloton and my husband was real committed, right?

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And this was like a couple of years ago, really committed to the Peloton.

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He would get on there. He would sweat up a storm. He felt great.

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And I was like, you know, I should really get up on that.

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Probably did about three rides and I

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shit you not Peloton I want you to sponsor us but

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maybe stop listening now that bike seat was

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painful you couldn't I did it would like hit the bone right in the no spot and

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it hurt so bad so then I was like I need a wider seat that's the reason I'm

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not on the Peloton right get a wider seat it was such a pain in the butt to

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switch because my My husband loved the actual Peloton seat.

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So then I was like, well, now, you know what? Fuck it. I tried everything.

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Which, like, honestly, come on, right? Yeah, forget it, dude.

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But we gave up on the Peloton. Yeah, never mind. Don't do it.

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Yeah, we ended up getting... He just got a treadmill upstairs.

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And I don't know. It's like a Nordic track, maybe.

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And I've been on that. That's fun. I like that. Yeah, then you can watch it.

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Well, now they have you can watch Netflix on Peloton. Oh, nice.

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That's good. Maybe I should go back to that Peloton. There's a lot of shows

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you need to catch up. Whatever. Oh.

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You know what? I got snow, and I get enough workout with that,

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so I don't need a Peloton. But they can still show us.

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I only shovel a very small portion of the back because my hands are little doll

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hands, and I can't use a snow blower.

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I really have, like, the fucking smallest hands in the world.

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They're like doll hands. so i just do a path from

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the back door to like a little cupboard spot

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and then my wife does the rest because oh

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that works or we have a neighbor that's been doing

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it we had a bunch of trees that they took off of our hill and we gave them the

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wood and ever since we gave them the wood they've been snow blowing the sidewalk

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for us so you know what's the barter that's great and we We offer to pay them

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and they won't take a cent from us. So, you know, those are good neighbors.

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You know, I lived up in Massachusetts for a while. And when we bought the house,

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we're Southern. My first husband, I'm remarried.

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But my first husband and I were up there with our three kids.

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And we were buying the house. And the guy that owns the house says,

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hey, I'll throw that snowblower in there for a thousand bucks or whatever.

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You know, and my husband was like, no, we're good.

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Oh, no. I've got video footage out the window back, probably on my little my camcorder.

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And I'm like, hey, honey. How's that going out there?

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I wish you bought that snow blower, don't you?

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Are you having a heart attack yet? Because, you know, the snow up here,

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it's not that light, fluffy stuff. It's usually like super wet and heavy.

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And yeah, no, I'm going to stay in the comfort of my house. I'm going to go

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shovel my little like three foot by two foot section.

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And I'm good. Yeah.

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Yeah. I kind of miss the snow, though. I liked it during holidays.

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I grew up in New England too. So like, I don't know. I just like the snow.

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It was pretty, but I also didn't have to shovel it. So yeah,

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sometimes I would go shovel just because I worked full time.

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My husband was a stay-at-home dad and I would go and shovel the snow like for exercise.

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But he hated it when I would do that because all the neighbor guys and they

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are traditional Massachusetts men and they're driving by like, what is she doing?

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Like what kind of a husband is letting his wife I'm like dude I'm trying to

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get a workout here oh my god I need this conversation.

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I know. What else can we talk about? Let's keep going. This is fun. Yeah.

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So tell me a little bit about some of the life lessons you've learned.

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I've got some notes here.

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So tell me what life by design means to Nakoa.

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Yeah. You know, I asked this question to my podcast guests as well.

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And I was thinking the other day, what is my real answer?

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Like, what's the authentic life by design answer? And the truth is,

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my definition of life by design has evolved and it continues to evolve.

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And I think what I'm beginning to, you know, the message I really want to give

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everybody about it is that you already have a life by design,

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whether you're thinking about it or not, because you're waking up every morning

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and you're making decisions and choices.

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And my work as an executive coach, and I'm a rapid transformational therapist,

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I help people kind of get over those subconscious blocks in life that are keeping them stuck.

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And my vision is to help people help themselves live a life by design that they

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don't need a vacation from.

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This does not mean that you don't take vacations, but you actually like your

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life, right? You really love it.

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And when you're living a life by design that you aren't thinking about,

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that's when you typically realize you're drinking too much wine at the end of

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the day or you're waking up annoyed with your partner or you're resentful of the guy at work.

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And and so I thought, how do I define it?

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I define it as life by design is one that you're consciously aware of.

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And that with every choice you make, whether you're going to go get on that

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Peloton or you're going to shovel the snow yourself or delegate that or pay

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for that. You know, right.

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Every choice you make. How does that align with what matters most to me?

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Not the world, not my mama, not the rabbi, not the whoever, you know, what matters most to me.

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And once you realize that it's a lot more liberating and you can create a life that you love.

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And most people don't realize they've got that much choice and power. What do you think?

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Yeah, I literally, this is coming at the right time as you're talking about it.

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It makes sense that it would change every day, right? Because no day is ever the same. pain.

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And there's going to be different opportunities, struggles, all of that.

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So for me, I'm internalizing what you're saying, thinking of how I can apply

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it to what I'm currently going through.

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And I think on our last Q&A, G-Rex, we talked about how I was like,

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I feel like I'm on the verge of something. I'm going to make a life change.

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Decisions are going to be made, all this stuff. And that is literally where I'm at.

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And so for me, for a while, I think I think maybe like a lot of our listeners,

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if things were tough, if I was having a hard time at work, if I was struggling

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to like go to sleep at night because I'm worrying about the next day or whatever,

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I think I would just apply this mentality of like, well, this is just how it is, right? Right?

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So just how it is, suck it up, do it.

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That is what it is. And I used to say that all the time.

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And then recently, what I noticed about myself, and what I think actually drove

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the changes that I'm making now, is I realized I had to make...

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I had made a decision that made me miserable. I was compromising my core beliefs

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and things that made me happy to just make it work because it is what it is.

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And once I realized that I had gone against the grain of who I was, that was it for me.

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Yeah. I was like, and it's nice.

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It's good that I finally broke through that, but also a little sad too,

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because I'm like, why did it take literally to go against the grain

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of who I was as my beliefs for me to realize fuck

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this I don't have to do this shit I could literally not

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do any of this right and do the things that make me happy and it just that was

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what it took for me sadly but well it's not sad it's just part of the journey

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I mean you can't I think we're all born enough we're born enough we're amazing

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we're selfish we cry when we're hungry when we need to be picked up.

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And that is normal and human.

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And then we're kind of brainwashed, right? And we're told, whoa,

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whoa, be quiet. Oh, stop crying. Oh, still.

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And then we begin to start answering to all of that because that gets us the

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validation that we want.

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Oh, I'm a good girl or, oh, I better do that so mom and dad love me.

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And over time, we just forget.

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And in my case, I was living the American dream because taking my family to

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the next level, you know, my dad was impoverished.

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I mean, he didn't have any electricity until he was six.

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And then his dad was able to build a house. And then, you know,

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then they upgraded to a two bedroom, one bath.

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And that was a big deal. And then my dad talked all that education.

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So here I am checking off the boxes. Right.

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And then if there was one question I wish someone had asked me when I was 12, 14, 18, 21, 29.

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It's the question, why? Why are you doing what you're doing?

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It sounds like you asked yourself that question.

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Yeah, literally, I was like, why do I feel I think for me, it was like,

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why did why do I feel the need to continue down this path?

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And I couldn't answer that anymore. Because I had realized it didn't matter

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what reason I had for why I was being miserable.

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What mattered the most was that this isn't me.

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And if I continue to be miserable I'm literally

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having to make decisions that I don't agree with to continue on being a miserable

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person right like I was like fuck this like this is bullshit and I have to give

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myself credit for actually vocalizing that to the people that I work with and

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the people above me that needed to know hey I just did some shit that I don't agree with,

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and that's it for me good for you that's it for me

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I will never do it again and I was so I was was like you know what immediately released

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all that tension and that stress and g-rex

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knows because i bent her every fucking day but i feel

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good like met like i'm in a great headspace i no

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longer feel tied or obligated to living that life right like now i can kind

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of take a page out of your book and design what it is that i want the rest of

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my days to look like that makes me so happy too because well that makes me happy

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because what you did was you realized that you were the creator of of your own reality.

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And, you know, you can either look at it this way. One, it's the most annoying

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thing to recognize about life.

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Or it's the most liberating that I am the only one who can make anything mean anything.

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Yeah. It was literally, I mean, you're absolutely right.

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Like I was doing this, I was feeling this way, but like the people that I was

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doing it for, they don't fucking care.

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Like they have no idea they're getting what they want out of it.

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So yeah, no, now selfishly I will go back to what makes me happy and not feel tied down.

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Well, you shouldn't have to. And that's called strategic self-care.

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And I'm big on that right now in the world of, you know, what I've been writing,

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what I've been publishing, what I've been talking with my clients about is self-care is not selfish.

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It's very strategic in a life by design.

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So when I was on that, I posted on my story this morning on Instagram,

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I stopped turkle-dirkling and now I'm working out.

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Why am I working out? I'm working out because my 83-year-old mother has a cane.

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I'm working out because I don't want to get lost when I'm driving in my car when I'm 83.

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I'm in the middle of my sandwich generation, taking care of my

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mom taking care of my i'm now an

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empty nester but still you're available to the young adults we

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have six kids between the two of us three and three and if i don't get on that

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peloton then i'm no good to anybody i can't serve those two pieces of my life

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but most importantly i need to serve me first and i know everybody listening

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oh okay oxygen mask on me first yeah Yeah, I know. Well, yeah.

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That's exactly right. You might want to rewind. Yeah.

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Yeah, I totally, I am so selfish about my self-care and self-love.

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Yeah, it took a mental breakdown for me to figure that shit out.

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But I am happier now than I have probably been in the last 25 years.

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You know, when I retired,

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like doors opened up for me that I didn't think we're going to open up.

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Opportunities opened up. I'm just happier. And also turning 60,

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because now, like I said, I don't give a fuck.

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I don't. I don't give a fuck about, you know, what people are saying about me.

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You know, whether they listen to the podcast or not, I don't give a shit. I don't. You know what?

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I'm happy. I'm in a really good place.

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And I'm out there doing something that truly was never in the wheelhouse.

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This podcast never in the wheelhouse retiring early

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that wasn't in the wheelhouse it happened and

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i'm happy for it but like and spending time

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with like my best friend right getting to do this and learning and thriving

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i'm living my best fucking life right now that just makes me so happy and you

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know what i call what your experience

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right is experiencing right now it's called something even better.

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So people spend a lot of time wishing for this future life. Oh,

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I wish this, or I want that, I want this.

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And they're writing it all down and they're writing three gratitude items and

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they're having their daily meditation, which I love all those things.

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But if you don't add the tagline or something even better, then you're restricting

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what's possible because we don't know. You didn't know this was possible.

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If you don't throw that in there and open up those those blinders to say,

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I want this and I want to feel like this or something even better,

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then who knows what you're resisting in those statements.

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Right. Right. I am curious if how did this start for you living your life the way you wanted to?

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You know, it started when I thought the only way to win the game was to get

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that whole American dream checklist checked off.

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And I was if you asked me back then, do you live a life by design?

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I'd be like, yeah, I'm about to be an exec.

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I'm making this much money. I got the two point four kids.

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I got the house and the other house and the three. I mean, I was like,

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I am winning and I was exhausted and I didn't have any kind of extra,

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like people would say, what are your hobbies?

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I'm like buying clothes for my kids. I don't know.

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And then finally, I began to recognize, you know, as they say,

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you wish you knew then what you know now.

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I began to recognize a lot of resistance. distance and as

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I tried to change my external environment move

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back down south we'd lived all over the country my by

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the time we moved back to North Carolina where I'm originally from and live

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now we had lived in seven different locations my 11 year old had lived in all

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seven so my career I just kept saying yes I kept saying yes thinking this is

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how you win you know overachiever worked Worked at GE and Thermo Fisher Scientific.

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And then I began to just start resisting. And now we get easily triggered.

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And I started dreading going into work. And I say to people,

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now, if you're dreading clicking into the Zoom call, it's time for a change.

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Well, I didn't know that I was going to spontaneously quit my job on a Monday

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afternoon in Chicago with a stay-at-home husband and three kids 12 years of age and under.

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And I just walked out.

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Did you say anything to anyone? What? Did you say anything to anyone?

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Like, I'm out. I said it to the CEO who I was reporting to. And he was like, what?

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But I had this visual, like this window was shutting, like the conversation

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he and I were having. We were never going to be on the same page.

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And I remember thinking, wow, I'm about to leave this meeting and nothing changed.

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And he can't hear me. And I was really like, he doesn't see me.

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He doesn't understand me.

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And I remember walking out of his office after I said, I'm triggering my contract.

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Now this is a very executive privileged experience.

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So I had a one year salary for the next year.

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But to me, it felt like I'd walked out and I was about to be a homeless lady.

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I mean, but the first feeling was, oh.

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Thank God I don't have to do that job profile project now. I mean,

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I was just like, I'm done. I'm out. I don't want to do this rat race anymore.

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And the two years prior that I did not listen to, which I want to quickly share

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these two stories because your listeners who aren't listening to their bodies

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and listening to their resistance and frustration,

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I had what I would call,

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we call it the near miss heart attack.

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I was in the middle of trick-or-treating once with my oldest son my oldest child and he.

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My husband had gotten the kids all ready for

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Halloween and I come zooming in from

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work and I get out of the car and he's like you

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know here's the candy or here's the pumpkins and we

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paraded the little one around to the neighbor so everybody could take

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the photos and then I hand the baby back and then he goes now don't forget

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you're taking justice my oldest you're taking justice is

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trick-or-treating with the neighbor in the other neighborhood so we jump

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in the car justice and i drive over there and i meet the mom of his friend within

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i'm not kidding you within 30 seconds i've forgotten her name this is how i

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was living my life and we're trick-or-treating and you know it's all fine and

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she's chit-chatting and i'm like oh.

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Man, what's, what is that? And she's just still talk, talk, talking.

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And I'm thinking, I wonder what her name is.

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And I'm having like pain in my chest and it's really tight.

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And then it's like, and it's going down my left arm and I'm thinking,

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holy shit, I'm 38 years old. I'm too young to have a heart attack.

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Are you kidding me? So I start telling her

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I'm not feeling so well and she goes oh

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that happened to me the other day it just turned out to be indigestion and I

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remember thinking oh my god I wish I

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knew her name so I

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tell my son I'm like hey justice you

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know like one more one more house and then let's go home so we go home and my

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beautiful stay-at-home husband bless his heart it's like do you want me to take

00:22:01
you to the to the hospital and being the alpha female that i was i said no i'm fine.

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So then i go online and i'm like silent killer

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of women you know and i still go to sleep

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that night and holy shit makes

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me think of so many things i want to talk about but the long run

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i go into my office the next morning with my

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american dream checklist assistant sitting there

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and she says what

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the hell nicole i've made you an appointment with the cardiologist right now

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and then she goes do you want me to drive you and i went no i got

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it i get there long story short

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the cardiologist comes into my appointment my

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blood pressure's off the charts and he says so mrs

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dunn you're not having a heart attack and i

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said well wait for it i said

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on the chart does it say i'm

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not having a heart attack because i

00:23:03
would i've already done my homework and all these male doctors were going to

00:23:07
tell me that this was anxiety and stress and they weren't going to actually

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see that i was having a heart attack yeah so it was anxiety and stress and i

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burst into tears and i'm calling my mom from the car like a good southern girl

00:23:20
does and And I'm like, mama,

00:23:21
it's not a heart attack.

00:23:24
And she's like, thank God. I'm so glad you're going to be fine. And I'm sobbing.

00:23:30
She says, why are you still crying, darling? And I said, why am I so disappointed?

00:23:38
And that's when I knew I needed to make a change.

00:23:42
But Dirty Skittles, did I make a change? G-Rex, did I make a change?

00:23:46
No. You didn't? She went back. When did you? back and did the same shit again

00:23:51
because we always do that fucking way.

00:23:54
We don't fucking learn because we don't we don't learn nine months later.

00:23:59
Malignant melanoma. I wonder why I keep looking at this mole on my right thigh.

00:24:04
My first husband, sweet man, you should probably go get that checked.

00:24:09
Well, I managed to go get a facial every six weeks at the same dermatologist.

00:24:13
And finally, the dermatologist says to me, the esthetician says to me,

00:24:18
you know, I found malignant melanoma on a client the other day. And I was like, really?

00:24:23
You know, that's amazing. I keep looking at this thing on my thigh.

00:24:26
She's like, you should get a checkup. And I was like, oh, it doesn't look like

00:24:29
any of those other, any of the other cancer pictures, right? right?

00:24:34
She's like, go make an appointment. You walk literally 25 feet from here.

00:24:38
So I made the appointment. Fast forward, I'm in Chicago on a business trip,

00:24:42
sit in the front seat after having had the appointment.

00:24:46
And I remember the doctor had asked me, is there anything at all that caused

00:24:50
you to come in? And I was like, just to check up. She's like, anything?

00:24:54
I said, well, I keep looking at this one on my thigh. so she'd taken this biopsy

00:25:00
and called me that afternoon in Chicago and said Mrs.

00:25:03
Dunn we've scheduled you for surgery for tomorrow and I'm like I'm very busy I'm in Chicago.

00:25:11
I was like I'm sorry I don't have time for you know and she says but let me

00:25:16
explain to you you have malignant melanoma and it's stage three and I was wait

00:25:22
I said how many stages are there.

00:25:28
I'm the only one I'm in a car service like there's this driver and I hang up

00:25:33
the phone and he goes oh Ms. Dunn are you okay? I'm like,

00:25:36
I said, what's your name? He said, I think he said his name was Robert.

00:25:40
Yeah, Robert. And I said, Robert, I think we just bonded.

00:25:46
What do you need? What do you want me to do? I said, well, I need to call my

00:25:52
husband and then mom and I need you to take me back to the hotel.

00:25:55
And I got that carved out. And then what did I do? What did I do, G-Rex?

00:26:01
You just kept on the same pattern because we don't fucking learn.

00:26:06
Hey, we don't, you don't learn until you have a complete fucking mental breakdown.

00:26:12
And then you realize that that shit was, maybe I should have taken a little

00:26:15
bit better care of myself.

00:26:17
Maybe I should have, maybe I should have listened to that intuition,

00:26:20
right? So they carve it out. I don't have it in any of the lymph nodes.

00:26:24
I don't have to have treatment.

00:26:25
Nobody's marching for me. Nobody's wearing a pink ribbon for me.

00:26:28
So I'm like, well, I didn't really have cancer.

00:26:31
I guess I better just go back to work. I quit nine months after that.

00:26:36
And I didn't even know. And it was the intuition that said, get the fuck out

00:26:41
of here. I mean, you are, this is enough.

00:26:44
It is enough. I mean, and so that was, y'all, I'm in my 16th year since the quit story.

00:26:53
And I will tell you that after the quit, I still didn't learn the lesson as well as I thought I had.

00:27:00
Because what I did next was I started my own business. And then I was thinking,

00:27:03
oh, crap, I got to figure out how to make all this money again. And I've only got a year.

00:27:08
So I started another business. And I was like, multiple revenue streams.

00:27:11
That's how I'll do it. And I'm just working my ass off. And then I started resenting

00:27:15
the phone call of my new president of the company I'd started.

00:27:20
And I thought, wait a minute, what in the world? And I had created what I call

00:27:25
the same circus under a different tent. Hmm.

00:27:30
And that's when I finally woke up. And that would have been,

00:27:33
I quit in 09, and that was probably 10, 11, 12. That was probably about 2014.

00:27:41
It took me that long, you guys. So I share these stories because whoever out

00:27:46
there is listening and is trying to make the change, be patient with yourself.

00:27:51
You're kind of, like you said, we never learned. We're kind of idiots.

00:27:54
And that's why, you know, you were talking about, why?

00:27:58
I'm so sad. why didn't i figure this out before it must be the journey i think

00:28:03
it's just what's required.

00:28:05
Yeah yeah it's the journey you know

00:28:08
like that way of thinking because we're so mean to ourselves right we're like

00:28:11
we you know i just if i just do this

00:28:13
like one little change everything will be better or

00:28:17
if i don't listen to this person things will

00:28:20
be better or how about if i stand up in the middle of the fucking office

00:28:23
and call everybody a bunch of fuckers everything will be better

00:28:26
all right it was that i didn't

00:28:29
do that if you did yeah true story there's

00:28:31
true story and there's a one of our episodes talks

00:28:35
about setting boundaries and you know

00:28:38
maybe not standing up in the middle

00:28:40
of the office and calm people a bunch of fuckers but you

00:28:43
know yeah life takes us on these paths and

00:28:46
you know we don't learn you know i wish that i'd

00:28:50
learned some of the lessons over the last year 20 years ago

00:28:53
but here's what we did learn here's why

00:28:56
that all i think there's value in all hashtag value

00:28:59
in all because if i had not gone through

00:29:02
all that we wouldn't be having this conversation for everybody listening

00:29:05
and we're helping them get out ahead of their life by design more intentionally

00:29:08
i always say get out ahead of it like what is it that you want get out there

00:29:12
go ahead and anticipate for something even better and if you can practice that

00:29:17
you know we We had to go through it to give them that valuable insight and knowing

00:29:22
and learning. So I trust it.

00:29:24
I don't regret it. I don't, you know, I'm actually kind of entertained by my

00:29:30
naivete and my self-righteousness.

00:29:34
It's kind of funny now when you look back on it. I think I was.

00:29:39
Super woman. Right. I think I struggle.

00:29:44
I'm still struggling with fear. the fear of

00:29:47
trying something different because I hate to fail and I know it's normal nobody's

00:29:54
perfect but for me the fear of failing will stop me from trying something have

00:30:00
you failed in your life okay so what are you making failure mean.

00:30:06
That is a good question. I think I'm, I am hard on myself.

00:30:11
So if I'm going to do something outside of, I'm going to call it the comfort

00:30:15
zone, which is like, you know, what you did, I know that I'm not going to be all right. Right.

00:30:20
If I'm going to do something outside of that and it has to succeed,

00:30:24
the pressure of, if it doesn't succeed, then you've wasted your time doing it. So that makes sense.

00:30:30
If you wasted your time, then you would think I didn't, you know,

00:30:36
i'm gonna die sooner because i wasted that amount of time

00:30:38
when i could have been doing something different right that's true

00:30:44
that makes me laugh

00:30:47
well yeah that's true my favorite question

00:30:50
is what am i making this mean yeah and

00:30:54
when i can answer that i usually go into like root cause analysis

00:30:57
so ask yourself the question why five times like what am i making this mean

00:31:01
i'm making can it mean that I wasted my time well why would I think that I had

00:31:05
wasted my time well because I don't think there's any value in doing something

00:31:09
that doesn't succeed well where and then the question is well where did I learn

00:31:12
that yeah and then is that true.

00:31:16
Was that a waste of time? Okay, well, what did I learn?

00:31:20
Did I learn something while I was going through that? Well, yeah,

00:31:22
I learned I don't like that. Oh, great. And that was a valuable experience.

00:31:26
Yeah, I think that's gotta be it because I'm like, I'm gonna commit to try something different.

00:31:32
And if I fail at it, then I'm wasting my time. And also, I'm like,

00:31:36
I should have never even tried it, right?

00:31:38
Like an example, I have this t-shirt printer because I'm like,

00:31:43
I'm gonna start printing t-shirts. I have this whole plan up here,

00:31:46
but to actually execute it, I freeze because I'm like, shit,

00:31:50
what if I do it? And okay, like, let's say it's good.

00:31:53
Then what's next? Are people going to want to buy it? What if they don't?

00:31:57
Then what am I doing? I'm just fucking out here.

00:32:00
Well, I love that because you know what you just did is that you step back and

00:32:04
you actually had a conversation with yourself.

00:32:06
And if you can learn how to have a conversation, right? Right.

00:32:09
The shit that goes on in our heads. Well, I want you to say,

00:32:11
well, that's one way to look at it.

00:32:13
Yeah and by the way i do

00:32:16
this whole thing with my coaching clients it's called energy leadership and

00:32:20
you have we all have life experiences that

00:32:23
brought us to today's conversation and as a result of all of those life experiences

00:32:27
we have a perception of the world and we have an attitudinal perception and

00:32:33
there's six different there's seven levels but there's six different ways in

00:32:37
which you can be perceiving your world.

00:32:40
And the way you just described it is in that scenario, well,

00:32:44
I've lost before I've even started.

00:32:46
That's called level one energy.

00:32:49
It's catabolic. It's really heavy. It's a scientific term for negativity and

00:32:53
fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

00:32:55
And that level one energy as the victim, which everybody hates that word, but it's victimhood.

00:33:01
We go, oh, I've lost before I've even started.

00:33:03
I mean, what if nobody even lied? You know what? but nobody even wants me to

00:33:06
be printing any t-shirts anyway. I mean, who wants that for me?

00:33:09
Or level two energy is the fighter.

00:33:13
You know what? Maybe you flipped it around. You're like, well,

00:33:15
screw this. I'm not going to do it. I'm an idiot anyway. I don't know what I

00:33:19
think I'm doing. That's ridiculous.

00:33:20
I'm going to go sell that shit. And what a waste of my money.

00:33:23
And you beat yourself up.

00:33:25
Or you get to level three, which is the first level of this taking response,

00:33:29
ability to respond, right?

00:33:32
I can respond to my world differently. I'm now in an anabolic space where I'm

00:33:37
growing. It's lighter. or doesn't feel heavy anymore.

00:33:40
And I can, because I can observe myself and have this conversation,

00:33:43
I can change the words. And I can go, well, okay, I can look at it that way.

00:33:47
Or I can just forgive myself for spending money on that t-shirt thing.

00:33:50
Because the truth is I don't really want to do it or I would have done it by

00:33:53
now. So I'm just going to go sell it on eBay and call it a day.

00:33:56
Or I'm going to make five t-shirts today and I'm going to sell them to G-Rex

00:34:01
and then I'll call myself successful.

00:34:04
And you know what? I would buy those t-shirts. i would buy one because i love

00:34:10
you and we had the conversation before you know it you're like except the problem

00:34:15
level four which is the caregiver and you're just nice to yourself give myself

00:34:20
a break i got excited about t-shirts that day and about that thing.

00:34:25
I'm just gonna be nice to me and maybe tomorrow i'll feel like it but i'm not

00:34:29
gonna beat myself up anymore because i love me and the only way i can is if

00:34:32
i give myself that kind of love Or when, hey, you know, G-Rex,

00:34:37
you want to come over today? We're going to make four t-shirts and I need your help.

00:34:40
A win for me is to get going on this plan.

00:34:43
And, you know, what do you think? Yeah, a win for me is to hang out with my best friend. Great.

00:34:48
Or level six, no big deal, man. Oh yeah, there's the t-shirt.

00:34:52
I don't make it mean anything.

00:34:53
Level seven, which of the below six energies will I consciously choose to apply to this story today?

00:35:02
That's the practice that's how you get to

00:35:05
where you got in the last month and if you

00:35:08
keep practicing you'll be like well yeah that's just like

00:35:10
you've learned in the past to say well it is what it is it is what i'm

00:35:13
making it mean do i

00:35:17
want to make it mean something else right that's

00:35:22
it's so interesting because i just applied those same

00:35:25
exercises to the podcast right when we

00:35:28
started of this we didn't think anybody was gonna fucking listen

00:35:31
to us i mean who wants to listen to us right we know nothing

00:35:34
but as time went on and

00:35:37
we got more engagement from our listeners and from

00:35:40
our guests it was like you know

00:35:43
the only way to go up now is the only place to go

00:35:46
now is up and if we do you know i don't think

00:35:49
we can fail and like we haven't gotten any

00:35:52
bad reviews i'm waiting for one right like why would

00:35:55
you even say that why would you i don't know

00:35:57
because i don't want to put it in the air but like i.

00:36:00
Think that i would handle it a lot better now than i would

00:36:03
have you know almost trying to test yourself

00:36:06
i'm trying to test myself right and and i

00:36:09
get to spend time with my best friend like we don't work

00:36:12
together anymore thank god but i do call her every morning and

00:36:15
make sure god and make sure that you know she hasn't

00:36:18
completely walked off the job or or somebody to

00:36:21
fuck off like in person because those are

00:36:24
not the best ways to deal with your life all right like you

00:36:28
have to kind of think about what the consequences are going to

00:36:30
be and if you are like physically and maybe monetarily able to do that right

00:36:37
there are times in our life when we just want to tell people to fuck off i know

00:36:42
but that's a catabolic reaction to the world and i would invite you that you

00:36:46
don't even have to tell them to fuck off because their behavior behavior has nothing to do with you.

00:36:50
And here's the questions I would have you ask, right?

00:36:53
The questions are these. Number one, what do I want?

00:36:58
Not about anybody else, right? Number one. And then when you got a little extra

00:37:01
time, why do I want that? Really understand.

00:37:04
Why do I want that? Number two, how is what I'm doing getting me what I want?

00:37:11
How is my current behavior, my perception, my story about this?

00:37:16
How is that getting me what I want?

00:37:19
All right. Well, if it's not getting me what I want, am I willing to try a different way? Am I willing?

00:37:26
Not the guy across the hall, not the person leading

00:37:29
the meeting am i willing to try a different way and

00:37:32
the most powerful different way is to.

00:37:35
Change what i am making it mean and that

00:37:39
what you were talking about earlier about and then

00:37:42
i i didn't have any more tension i no longer resisted what

00:37:45
is i began to embrace what is

00:37:48
and then i stepped way back and i said

00:37:51
okay what do i want now well i don't want to hang out with these guys because

00:37:54
i don't care for them but i don't have to attack them because

00:37:57
i know that my life is mine right i don't have to write

00:38:00
off anymore they know what their life's theirs maybe

00:38:02
they're showing up for me in this way

00:38:05
so i will make that life change so

00:38:08
i will leave so i will go do what i actually

00:38:11
want to do because the reason they're really pissing me off and i'm

00:38:14
really getting triggered because they're not showing up for me the way

00:38:17
i wish they would is because somehow somewhere an

00:38:20
agreement was made that would be the instigator for

00:38:24
me to do something even better so thank

00:38:27
you for making me pissed off at you ceo back in the

00:38:30
day i love you very much now bless your heart does that

00:38:35
make sense you guys do you see where i'm oh totally oh yeah

00:38:38
it's it's totally i can totally

00:38:41
get it a hundred percent i really a hundred percent now it takes practice yes

00:38:46
yes yeah i know i love this like that's what i was saying i was like i'm I'm

00:38:51
so excited that we're talking today because of the fucking bullshit that I've

00:38:55
just gone through and kind of come out and all of this realization happening.

00:38:59
Let's toast to you. Congratulations.

00:39:01
Yeah. Cheers to you. Here's my Mountain Dew that I keep getting shit for.

00:39:06
So, you know, I listened to the last episode. I heard that everybody was like,

00:39:11
you're like it's red dye number nine or something.

00:39:15
Whatever. We're all going to die or something. Hey, I'm going to dye red. It's all good.

00:39:21
So nicole where can our listeners find you for

00:39:23
this episode well there's a handful of places i want to send everybody to my

00:39:28
podcast we just launched when i say we me and that mouse in my pocket we just

00:39:32
launched season two so you guys have been rolling for me i mean i looked you're

00:39:39
in season four is that right yeah season five.

00:39:43
Season five. That's right. We just wrapped. Yeah. Oh, I'm so proud of you guys.

00:39:47
Well, so Coffee with Nikoa is the name of the podcast. We just launched season two.

00:39:53
And what I do is I interview people about their life by design,

00:39:57
the kind they don't need a vacation from.

00:39:59
And I'm trying to share different stories about life that'll help people come

00:40:04
up with ways to design lives that are more harmonized and integrated.

00:40:07
Instead of I work, work, and then I go on vacation to feel good.

00:40:11
And I barely feel good on the vacation.

00:40:13
Anyway because I never have enough time so if people can begin to

00:40:16
share their life stories that's the purpose of the podcast

00:40:19
and I'm always looking for guests so I might have to bring

00:40:21
you guys on I did interview two people in town so I

00:40:24
will do it and then the other way they can find me is I have a blog site called

00:40:30
coffee with nicoa and it's n-i-c-o-a coffee with nicoa.com and then for all

00:40:36
my coaching clients my executive and you know individual contributor clients

00:40:40
they They can go to nicoa.coach.

00:40:44
You can now have .coach at the end. Isn't that cool?

00:40:47
That's cool. And last but not least, I just launched a book on Amazon and it

00:40:53
is called the My Life by Design Journal.

00:40:56
It's a self-care coaching journal.

00:40:59
And it's a book and pages for you to be writing and reflecting and having that

00:41:03
conversation with yourself. So I'm super excited.

00:41:06
It just launched and we did it through KDP printing and I made it a hardcover, guess what?

00:41:13
It'll be in your house in five weeks.

00:41:17
Order it now.

00:41:21
No prime. You're not getting overnight. Maybe you guys push this out.

00:41:26
We should post this right away so people can order.

00:41:30
I'm totally ordering it right now. You gotta order it. And then for the first

00:41:34
10 people that actually post like their unboxing and everything,

00:41:37
We're going to do two free group, my life by design book club coaching sessions,

00:41:42
like a group coaching around the journal.

00:41:44
And I'm super excited about that. It'd be free for anybody that helps me market.

00:41:48
And then last but not least, I did want to plug if I don't, I assume this will

00:41:53
go out before April, you think? Oh, yes. Okay, perfect.

00:41:58
If anyone is listening and there's still a bed left, we are hosting an island

00:42:04
gathering at Bald Head Island.

00:42:06
My friend Donna Dowson, her website or her Instagram is journeywithdonna.

00:42:11
And she and I have co-created this retreat for women.

00:42:17
And it's four days of luxury, like above and beyond.

00:42:20
You do not have to lift a finger other than self-reflection and yoga classes

00:42:25
and journaling and coffee with Nakoa.

00:42:28
And there's lots of chunks of time to go and explore the island,

00:42:32
swim in the pool, go to the bar at the club, do whatever you want.

00:42:36
And then we'll come together in a gathering and really connect.

00:42:41
And my word this year is connection. And this retreat is really going to be

00:42:45
kind of the epitome of that.

00:42:47
Most women are not taking the

00:42:49
time for strategic self-care and in letting themselves be taken care of.

00:42:54
And I want to generously give to them what I have craved most of my life.

00:43:01
And it will serve me as, you know, at the same time. So I just want to plug

00:43:05
that. That sounds amazing.

00:43:07
It does. That sounds amazing. I need to go. Okay. I'll give you all the stuff.

00:43:14
You can put it in the show notes. Yeah, awesome.

00:43:18
Thank you. I mean, I appreciate this conversation. and I'm taking away from

00:43:21
it more than you know. Thank you so much. It's an honor.

00:43:24
Thank you guys for having me. You know, I want to go to the top of the mountain

00:43:27
and just keep talking all day long. So I appreciate the platform.

00:43:31
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, definitely come back. Thank you. All right.

00:43:36
Thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Love you. Love you. Be good. Bye. Bye.

00:43:42
Bye all. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I'm G-Rex.

00:43:47
And I'm Dirty Skittles. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast.

00:43:51
We'd love to listen to your feedback.

00:43:54
We can't do this without you guys.

00:43:58
Music.