Description:

“That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at [focus on] the troubles we can see now; rather we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever!” 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Why is it so important to learn how to reset and renew?

What happens when you don’t do this on purpose and on time?

What does an abundant mindset have to do with building your process for resetting and renewing?

Script:

Well, it’s a new month, so you know what that means. We’re moving on to the next letter of MASTER.

For the last several months, I’ve been talking in great detail about my MASTER Your Money Mindset process. Together, we’ve gone through the first five letters of MASTER. I started the journey with the M in Master, which stands for Money Lies.

So you might remember that I’m doing a series of episodes where I’m sharing, you’re sharing my Master Your Money Mindset, six step process. And each month, I’m sharing examples and strategies on how to master your money mindset. So in April, I started with the M and Master, which is for money lies, you first have to detect and expose the money lies you believe, in order to master your money mindset. And that’s why I talk so much on this podcast about money lies and what they are, how to detect them, how to find them. And so this episode here today is going to talk a little bit more about how to find those money lines. Because until you find those money lies, you won’t be able to take them through this process. So back in April, I talked a lot about that. 

That’s Episode 49 through 53, if you haven’t listened to those episodes, and I talked about how money lies really are almost like a computer virus that’s operating in the background, they really do impact the performance of your business. Then in May, episodes 54 through 57, I talked about the A in master which stands for awareness, I talked about building up Awareness around where the money lies came from, how they impact you what results, they get you a lot of the different facets of the money lies that we believe because awareness really helps us build up ammunition that we can use in the next step of the master process, which is Scrutinize. 

So then in June I talked about in episodes 58 through 61, I shared the process of scrutinizing the money lies, questioning those lies, so that we can then uncover the truth about ourselves and about money and about anything that we do in our business. So that was June. And then in July, I covered the T in master which is Transform your identity. So you remember I talked about Charlie Jubilee and CEO Charlie and that whole persona. And so we talked a lot about identity. And luckily, there were five weeks in that month, which is perfect, because I like to spend a lot of time on identity because our beliefs about ourselves, our beliefs about money, really do impact how we see ourselves and how we see our identity. And our identity has so much to do with how we show up in the world. 

August took us through the  E in master which is Elevate, which also happens to be the name of the Retreat I’m hosting here in Nashville in October — I’ll tell you more about that in a bit. For the Elevate episodes, I talked about how to elevate your thinking and elevate your possibilities for your life and for your business. Once we step into that new identity, we open up a whole new world of possibilities. When we step into the identity where we’ve already stripped away some of those money lies. Remember, we’ve stripped away the marble, just like Michelangelo did with the statue of David. We’ve stripped away those lies representing the parts of us that aren’t really us.

That brings us to the last letter in MASTER which is R. R stands for Reinforce Your Identity. If you’ve ever had a huge transformation or made a huge life change, you know that it can be a little confusing for your brain. It can be a little uncomfortable in the beginning to leave the thing we’ve known so well, that was so comfortable, whether it’s a change for the better or for worse. When we move from bad to good or good to better, it can be just as uncomfortable as moving from better to worse, because either way it represents something your brain has to get used to.

Transforming your identity from stories that led to results we didn’t want to results we do want is still a change and it still requires some getting used to for your brain. Think about those big life changes. If you’ve ever lost a significant amount of weight or had a complete makeover, the you that you see in your mind’s eye takes a little while to catch up to the you that you see when you stand in front of a mirror. I remember when Glamour Shots were popular. I have never liked having my picture taken, but I loved getting glamour shots done. Because they put a bunch of makeup on you. You get to pick from a whole new wardrobe. They make you look beautiful and glamorous.

But I remember when the glamour shots were over, later in the day I would walk by a mirror or a window and catch a glimpse of myself in my reflection. I would do a double take because in my mind’s eye I looked very different than my reflection. At first it didn’t compute, until my brain remembered and reconciled what I saw in the mirror with what I saw in my mind and the reason for it.

 

It’s funny how that image gets imprinted on our brains and it takes a lot of reinforcing to change that image. When you transform your identity by stripping away the Money Lies you no longer want to believe, it’s a similar process. You have to go through that process of continually reminding your brain who you really are. That’s why you want to reinforce it, because you want your brain to become more comfortable with the new identity than it is with the old identity, so it becomes automatic. Just like the version of you that believed the Money Lies became automatic, you want this version that is who you truly are to become automatic. You do that by reinforcing that new identity over and over and over. You do that by stepping into that new identity on purpose. By living it out every single day. By noticing when you’re not living it out and exploring the reasons for that, course correcting.

That’s what we’ll be talking about throughout September. That process of reinforcing that new identity. And to start, I want to talk about how you Reset and Renew. If you think about a computer, every so often it’s good just to shut it down and do a hard reboot. It’s one way to reset the memory to make room for the new.

If you think about going from one chapter of your life to another, it’s helpful to have a transition period to settle into the newness of your life, whether that’s getting married, having a child, starting a new career, becoming an empty nester or retiring. When you move from one chapter to another, you take on a new role as part of that change. You want to support yourself in that transition. You want to reinforce who you’re becoming in a way that propels you forward.

Who are you becoming on your entrepreneurial journey? How can resetting and renewing help you make progress on that journey?

There’s a passage of scripture that I came across recently that seemed appropriate to describe this process of reinforcing our new identity that I wanted to share with you.

It’s from Second Corinthians Chapter 4 verses 16 through 18. It reads:

“That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at [focus on] the troubles we can see now; rather we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever!”

Do you feel a lot of pressure in your business? Do you feel pressure to perform, pressure to create, pressure to make money? And where does that pressure come from?

It comes from a lot of different places.

Some of it probably comes from the expectation to succeed. Which leads to a fear that you’ll actually fail.

Some of it comes from not wanting to disappoint people.

Not wanting to disappoint ourselves, not wanting to disappoint God, not wanting to disappoint our family, not wanting to disappoint the people who believed in this dream of ours and not wanting to disappoint the people we’re here to help.

But when we operate from that pressure, when we focus more on that pressure, then we focus less on our purpose. We focus less on what we’re here to do, what we’re here to create, the impact we’re meant to have, and yes, you know I’m not going to leave this out … the more that we’re made for.

When there’s more pressure, that means there’s less purpose.

If you want to create MORE, if you want to achieve better results,  if you want to become all you’re meant to be, if you want to have all you’re meant for, the key to unlock that MORE is to remove the pressure.

Another way to do that is to actually lean into that pressure or process that pressure in a way that helps you focus less on the pressure and more on your purpose, because more purpose will bring less pressure.

When you step MORE into your purpose, it makes it easier to step out of the pressure.

Just focus on what you’re here to do, and then decide the more that you’re going after, and decide the input or the investment that you want to put into that more. Because I guarantee you, once you decide on those two things, and you believe that they’re possible, it’s inevitable that they happen.

There is no pressure when you just keep moving. When you keep moving forward, getting there is inevitable.

That’s what I did back in 2007.

And that’s what I had to do this morning.

All right today is September 3 and guess what? I was supposed to release a podcast at eight o’clock this morning because I release the podcast every Friday at 8am. But I did not release a podcast this morning at 8am. And so now it’s Friday afternoon, and I am now recording my podcast. And  you might wonder, why is it that it didn’t get released on time? What kept her from recording her podcast in time to release it at 8am on Friday?

Well, I will tell you – it’s Money Lies. That’s the only thing that ever keeps me from doing anything that I want to do in my business, or money lies. And so this morning. I think I’ve felt this building, really, all week. But this morning, it just kind of all came crashing down on me, and not in a dramatic way. Really, and just have a quiet meltdown kind of way, just kind of like in the background. I don’t think anybody really noticed. But, so finally I decided I’ll go on my walk, things do not seem to be getting better for me emotionally, mentally. I still feel like crap. So I will go on the walk. What I realized when I went on that walk, was that I was going on that walk to remind myself, who I was. To reset, renew and remember who I truly am. And so that’s what this podcast is about today, because I am the same person today as I was in 2007, and that’ll make more sense in a few minutes when I tell you what happened in 2007, and I will come back to this thought thread, after I tell you that story.

At the beginning of that year, I was looking for MORE. I felt a little stagnant and I wanted more meaning in my life. I wanted to shake things up a bit. I wanted to take some risks. I wanted to experience MORE. For some reason, that manifested in deciding to attend a meeting to learn more about the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Team in Training program. If you’re not familiar with this program, it’s one of Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s biggest fundraisers. They recruit average, everyday people, put them on teams to train for an endurance event, they provide the training, the travel and sign you up for that event in exchange for you raising money for research, advocacy and treatment programs to benefit Leukemia and Lymphoma patients. There’s a minimum fundraising goal in order to make sure that they don’t lose money on the deal.

You get to choose from one of three endurance events: a triathlon — where you swim, bike and run; a century cycling race where you ride a bike for one hundred miles; or a marathon, which is 26 miles. I chose a triathlon. Why I signed up I am not sure. I wasn’t comfortable asking for money and I had never learned to swim. It makes no sense why I would sign up to train for a triathlon where I had to raise money. Nonetheless, I had signed up and I’m not one to leave someone hanging.

The journey wasn’t pretty. It was tough. Raising the money is what I expected to be the hardest part — it actually turned out to be the easier part. What fueled me was my commitment to the patients that would benefit from the fundraising. That’s what made it easy. I felt like I was asking for them, which was much easier than asking for myself.

Not only that, but I came up with what I would now recognize as an irresistible offer, but back then, it was just the most comfortable and best way I could think of to raise the money. I did ask for donations, but what I also did was invite people at my office to order fresh salads for lunch every Monday, the proceeds of which would go to this great cause.

I offered them value. For a very reasonable price, I would provide them with a gorgeous, well-endowed salad AND they would be contributing to a great cause. Well, after the first week, I had no problems getting as many orders as I wanted, because it was a tremendous value. I did this about a dozen times throughout the four months, which really boosted my fundraising. I ended up raising over $5000 through the traditional donations I got by asking everyone I knew combined with the sales of the salads.

That was the easy part. Turns out that people like to be asked to support a cause. I even had people that I didn’t ask to donate find out what I was doing and reach out to me to see if they could donate. Think about how good you feel when you get to make a difference. What I didn’t realize going into this is that I wasn’t pestering them. Instead I was giving them an opportunity to be part of something bigger than themselves. I didn’t have a single person get upset that I asked them to donate.

If they wanted to give money, they did and if they didn’t, I didn’t make it a problem. That’s what made it easy.

Some of you make asking for money a problem and that’s what makes it hard. Now I’ll tell you what was hard. The training. The second week of training, I was out on the bike training with the team. The coach was riding beside me cheering me on and decided he would high five me. That was a little too much for this rusty bike rider and I lost my balance.

I wrecked and the girl behind me ran over me with her bike. I broke my arm. It was a simple ulnar fracture, but they didn’t put a cast on it, because of the location of the fracture was so close to my elbow. Apparently this is a common fracture in children. I was out of commission for training.

I could still train as long as I didn’t use my arm, so I could do stationary bike or running, but not swimming. So my swimming lessons would have to wait. By the time that I got released to continue my training, I came down with bronchitis, so I was sidelined again.

By the time I was getting over the bronchitis I had sharp pains in my abdomen and they could not figure out the cause. It was tormenting. Anything I would eat or drink would have me doubled over in pain.

Sidelined again!

Finally someone at work told me to have them check my gallbladder and sure enough an ultrasound revealed a huge gallstone blocking my bile duct. I had surgery to have my gallbladder removed and again I was sidelined for the recovery time.

FINALLY, I was released and I started swimming lessons about a month out from the race. I had A LOT of catching up to do in my training, but I kept going.

I would send out weekly updates to my faithful supporters and so many of them emailed me asking why I didn’t just quit. Surely people would understand and nobody would blame me from deciding to stop.

But I was determined and I was very committed. My rationale was that if those leukemia and lymphoma patients had to endure their condition, I could keep going too. That was the whole point of training for an endurance event — to represent the endurance and resolve that those cancer patients had to muster up.

I swam, biked and ran those last weeks with renewed vigor. Finally I didn’t have any condition weighing me down. It wasn’t easy, but I kept going. I finally did race and even though I was the last one out of the water in the swimming leg, I didn’t cross the finish line last and when I did,  I screamed “I am a triathlete!”

But it wasn’t when I crossed the finish line that I became a triathlete. It was in the training. The way I showed up in that training was how a triathlete would show up. Before I ever crossed the starting line at the race, I was already the person who swam, biked and ran for that distance.

So out on that walk earlier, I just had to detect the money lies I was believing, question them and remind myself who I truly am. I am a person who finishes what she starts. I had to remind myself that I’m someone who keeps going. I had to remind myself that what I want is inevitable. And what I want is to make a difference, just like I did back in 2007.

If you want to make a difference you can. If you want more, it is available. It’s not only available to you, but that more that you want is inevitable. If you keep going, you will eventually get there. There’s no way you can’t, there’s no way that it won’t happen. If you just keep Going

Let’s go back to the passage I read from Second Corinthians:

“That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at [ in other words focus on – because what we focus on grows] the troubles we can see now; rather we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see [in other words who we truly are] will last forever!”

Resetting and Renewing helps you keep reinforcing that new identity, helps you keep stepping into that new identity, helps you keep living out that identity.

That’s what I had to do this morning when I went on my walk. I had to reset and renew my thinking. I had to question a few money lies. I had to remember who I truly am and what I’m here to do.

I had to make the time and space to do that. I had to do it on purpose. And because I didn’t do it on purpose earlier in the week, that’s why I didn’t get my podcast out on time. Because I wasn’t showing up as who I truly am. I wasn’t acting like the person that gets podcasts out on time because I was believing money lies.

Have you made the time and space to reset your identity, renew your identity to someone who shows up powerfully no matter what, so you can show up and give your people opportunities. Give them tools. Give them insight, give them wisdom. Give them your belief in them, equip them, and empower them. All of that are examples of ways to give. And when you give. When you offer those opportunities whether they’re free or paid, Then you make a difference. And you become someone who makes a difference.