Lessons from a Quitter

One of the main principles I try to live by and teach my students is to focus on one thing Focus on one goal for the year. Focus on one area to improve. Focus on one limiting belief. Just slow down and take as much time as it takes to get the result you want in that ONE area and then move onto the next thing. But most people push against this because we've been conditioned to believe we need to change it ALL…and FAST. So we set a ton of goals, tell ourselves we're behind, and scramble because we think there isn't enough time. But we all know what happens. We get overwhelmed and give up. The irony is that if you slow down to work on one thing until you've mastered it, you actually start solving your problems. That's exactly what Betty Dao did. She was in my program Pave Your Path and she took my advice to focus on just ONE thing. She got to work on that. She even stopped coming to the coaching calls because she didn't want to be influenced to work on other things and she changed her life! She's on the podcast today to talk about her journey.

Here's why self-love is CRITICAL. You think your problem is: People pleasing Perfectionism Caring too much about what other people need Overachieving Imposter syndrome But the root of all of those is a lack of self-love. And this isn't in some woo-woo "all we need is love" kind of thing. I've coached thousands of people and the root of almost every problem is some underlying belief of: I'm not good enough. It's a worth issue. Think about it. That's why we so desperately need other people to approve of or like us. That's why we try so hard to be perfect. That's why we keep checking off all the boxes society tells us to in order to be "good enough". They're all defense mechanisms. Because we're terrified that somehow our deepest insecurity might be true…that maybe we're really not good enough in some way. And so we hustle…we perform…we give and give… But no amount of other people's love or accomplishments or perfection will ever outrun that thought. If it would, you would've done it by now. It only changes when we decide to change our own thoughts about ourselves. It's available to you right now. No need to do or be anything else. And it's one of the most important skills to cultivate. On today's podcast episode, I dive deeper into why self-love is critical.

My friend, Scarlett Cochran, is back on the podcast today to talk about how to think about your money in a way that lets you create the rich life you want today. If you didn't catch Scarlett's first episode on the podcast where she talked about her incredibly inspiring story (she went from single teen mom in the military making $25k a year to putting herself through Yale Law School to becoming a Banking and Consumer Finance Attorney to growing her platform One Big Happy Life to multiple six figures as a side hustle) make sure to check it out here. But after coaching thousands of people on how to build wealth, Scarlett started seeing a pattern: People were living by other people's money rules…even if it made their lives miserable. So she set out to change that. She wrote her first book, It's Not About the Money, to change how people approach their money. The book gives a simple system for understanding and managing your money in a way that feels good to YOU so you can create the life you want to live TODAY and every day after that. And she's on the podcast to talk about it with us today. Make sure to snag her book and follow her here: Book - https://onebighappylife.com/book Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@OneBigHappyLife Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/onebighappylife/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/onebighappylife/

Everyone focuses on teaching you how to set goals. But what happens after you set it? We all know that the hard part comes from following through. Most of know what we want to do but we just feel like we can't get ourselves to do it. On today's podcast, I'll teach you why that's a myth (you really can follow through) and how to start doing it.

One of the main issues I see with people who give up on their goals is that they're setting too many. You get 1 goal per year. That's it. No exceptions. On today's episode I explain how picking one goal can help you skip overwhelm give you a filter to make decisions and get you to be nicer to yourself It's the difference between hitting your goals and giving up.

Your self-concept is the thoughts you have about yourself. And it dictates everything. Whatever you believe is possible, or not, for you is based on your self-concept. Every goal you set is an attempt to change your self-concept. Meaning, you hope to achieve the goal to change how you view yourself. But the biggest life-hack is knowing that you can change your self-concept without having to achieve those goals first. In fact, learning to change your self-concept can help you achieve your goals faster. On today's episode, I'm sharing how I've changed my self-concept and how you can too

This week's podcast is my year in review. If you want to know how much money I made and how I made it last year… If you want to know the good, bad and the ugly (like how I had 2 of my worst launches EVER!)... If you want to know about some of the other things I was battling outside of work… Check out the episode today.

Last week on the podcast, we talked all about being open to the possibilities. Well, Dielle Charon is an example of what is possible. Starting out her career as a Social Worker, Dielle was doing something she loved but wasn't making enough money to even cover her student loans. Realizing she needed to make additional income, she began her entrepreneurial journey on the side. She grew her coaching business to replace her income while working her full-time job and commuting 3-hours a day! She finally quit in 2020 and went from making $40,000 in her coaching business to making $1 million in 2022. Her story is simply incredible. Dielle is a certified life coach and 7 figure sales expert for WOC Coaches. She is the host of the Black, Banked, and Booked Out Podcast and runs two sales programs: Five Figure Freedom and Six Figure Liberation. Make sure to check out all of her amazing teachings here: Diellecharon.com/Podcast Diellecharon.com/free-training

Are you open to the possibility that things could be so much better than they are now? That you could have more time. More money More opportunities More creativity More connection More flexibility More of whatever you want If you're not open to that, ask yourself "why?" Because here is the unfortunate truth: If you're not open to it, it won't happen. In today's episode, I'll dive into: Why your belief in what is possible has to be the first step Why believing other people have more possibilities is a problem How to start opening yourself to more possibilities Check out the episode for more!

Right now can be a difficult time for many. With the announcement of tens of thousands of layoffs and the signs of a pending recession, it's easy to fall into tons of negative thinking. While we can't change the circumstances that we encounter in life… We can change how we respond to them. In fact, that's the only thing we control. On today's podcast, I dive into how you can reduce all the anxiety, stress, and frustration that comes along with uncertain times or difficult things in the world.

This week's episode is a replay of Episode 117: How Kristina Barile Went From MIT Rocket Scientist to Living Off The Land In Panama. On this week's episode, I interview the incredible Kristina Barile on her journey from a Harvard and MIT-grad rocket scientist to living in a mud home in Panama, teaching holistic, nutritional Ayurveda and freelance writing. In last week's episode, we talked all about how unnatural our lives have become and the effects it is having on our lives. Kristina and her husband recognized this deep restlessness in corporate America and decided to embark on a journey to find a better way. Her journey opened her up to a wide array of experiences: traveling 30 hours up to Mount Kailash in the Himalayan Mountains, to living in India for 5 months to focus on meditation and self-awareness, to finally building a sustainable mud home in Panama. Kristina's story is still evolving but her unwavering desire to ground herself and live an authentic life will keep her moving forward.

I'm launching my membership, the Quitter Club, for the first time and I want to tell you all about it. Why did I switch to a membership? What's included? Who is it for? All of that and more is included in this week's episode.

As long as you tell yourself the lie that you don't know what you want, you'll stay stuck exactly where you are. You do know what you want. You're just scared to admit it to yourself. Because once you admit, then you actually have to take action. But there is power in admitting it to yourself. It allows you to get out of all the confusion and overwhelm that keeps you spinning for years and actually get started on the path to your dreams. In this episode, I dive into how you can start accessing what you really want.

We often think that our thoughts are not only "true" but "realistic." So we tell ourselves things like "this probably won't work," "I have no idea how to do this," and "this is way too hard," in order to not be delusional. In today's episode, I'm going to show you how that not only creates the result of you not figuring it out but also creates a life that is small and unenjoyable. I'm a big believer in the thinking it'll always work out for you even if you have no proof that it will. Not because I want you to be delusional. There is a total logical reason to think this. And it'll change your whole life. Check out the episode to find out how.

We're all doing too much. Busy has become a badge of honor. And as we continue to run on the hamster wheel to get ALL THE THINGS done, we miss out on this one precious life we have. No more. The goal is not to get more done. The goal is to have less to do. Without guilt. That's what I teach you on the podcast this week.

Balancing all of the thoughts around your career is already hard enough, throw kids into that mix and it can feel like you're constantly drowning. The guilt of feeling like you're always dropping some balls.The resentment of never having any time for yourself.The exhaustion of always taking care of someone or something else. This week on the podcast, I'm going to show you how thought work helped transform my relationship as a mother which allowed me to create the career of my dreams. In this episode, I talk about how learning to manage my mind helped me: Understand my real role as a mother Understand myself better Understand my children more fully All three of these things allowed me to take off the martyr-badge most moms are required to wear and create a life that actually works for me and my family.

This week, we tackle a big topic in high-achieving communities like this one: Imposter Syndrome. So many of my clients, who have years of experience, degrees, great reviews, insane accomplishments, still believe the lie that they have no idea what they're doing. Why is that? This episode tackles why we hold on to the thoughts causing Imposter Syndrome so tightly and how to start loosening that grip.

This week's episode is a replay of Episode 76: From Lawyer to Chocolate Maker: How Shawn Askinosie Found His Calling. Sure, quitting is easy if you've always hated your job. But what if you used to love it? What if you loved it for many years? What if you were really, really good at it? I'm so excited about this week's episode with the amazing Shawn Askinosie. Shawn walked away from a very successful career as a criminal defense attorney, a job he used to love. Until he didn't. He realized that the career he once loved was putting him into an early grave and that it was time to do something else. Shawn is now the founder of Askinosie Chocolates, named by Forbes as "One of the 25 Best Small Companies In America." He was also named by O, The Oprah. Magazine, as "One of 15 Guys Who Are Saving the World." No big deal. He spends his days traveling between 4 continents to directly source his cocoa beans from farmers, where he offers them above Fair Trade prices, open books, and a share of his profits. He has created an inspiring company that not only gives back directly to the farmers but his community as well. His book - Meaningful Work: The Quest To Do Great Business, Find Your Calling And Feed Your Soul, co-written with his daughter, Lawren Askinosie, published by Penguin Random House is a #1 bestseller on Amazon. I got to chat with Shawn about how he walked away from a career he loved and how he figured out what he should do next. Here is what we chat about in this episode: Do the deep work and figure out who you truly are. Look for those thresholds. Be vulnerable with the people in your life. And so much more! Where to find Shawn: Book Business Blog TED Talk

One of the skills I see people struggling with the most–and one I struggled with for years–is making decisions. And the reason people struggle is because they're focused on the wrong thing. You're focused on guaranteeing the outcome you want which is impossible. Instead, I want you to focus on the reasons you're making the decision. When you're clear on what your reasons are and you actually like them, it becomes a lot easier to make decisions. I dive deeper into why knowing your reasons is the most important step and how it can change decision making for you in this episode.

This week, we dive into the new viral trend of Quiet Quitting and why it's a problematic term. Quiet Quitting is a trend on social media where people stop going above and beyond their job descriptions and instead only do what they're paid to do. This is, in no way, quitting. And it's harmful to call it that because it operates under the assumption that the employee is doing something wrong when really they're setting up proper boundaries. On the podcast this week, I dive deeper into why this is problematic and what we should be calling it instead.

This is Part 3 of a 3-part series on Toxic Work Environments. The term "toxic" is thrown around so often that it has all but lost its meaning. It's hard to know what truly is toxic and what is something we just don't like. In this series, I'll dive into how to start discerning what is toxic, what you have control over and how to think about your career in a way that will serve you. Part 1 dealt with Toxic Coworkers. Part 2 dealt with Toxic Bosses and other people who have a direct impact on your job. This episode dives into how you can manage your mind around jobs that have toxic hours, tasks, or conditions that are not ideal.

This is Part 2 of a 3-part series on Toxic Work Environments. The term "toxic" is thrown around so often that it has all but lost its meaning. It's hard to know what truly is toxic and what is something we just don't like. In this series, I'll dive into how to start discerning what is toxic, what you have control over and how to think about your career in a way that will serve you. Last episode dealt with Toxic Coworkers. This episode deals with Toxic Bosses and other people who have a direct impact on your job. Next week, we'll dive into jobs that have toxic hours, tasks, or conditions that are not ideal.

This is part 1 of a 3-part series on toxic work environments. The term "toxic" is thrown around so often that it has all but lost its meaning. It's hard to know what truly is toxic and what is something we just don't like. In this series, I'll dive into how to start discerning what is toxic, what you have control over and how to think about your career in a way that will serve you. This episode deals specifically with toxic coworkers. But the principles can be applied to anything that is a part of your work life but doesn't have a direct impact on you completing your duties. Part 2 will dive into toxic bosses or anything that does have a direct impact on your work. And Part 3 will explore toxic jobs, meaning tasks, hours, or conditions that are not ideal.

If you only look to your past, at what you've already achieved, in order to determine what you're capable of achieving in the future, you'll only get the same results you already have. That's why so many people limit their dreams. They think that all that is possible are things that they already have evidence for. But–here is the thing–your past only exists in your mind. It does not dictate what is possible in the future. You have to learn to tap into your future self to push out of your comfort zone and dream up a life bigger than the one you can imagine. This week on the podcast, I'll show you how.

We all know how to work hard to achieve things but we're terrible at actually enjoying them. That's because our society loves to glorify hard work but shame the people who have anything– rest, joy, money, pleasure, food. So we think we want those things, we hustle to get them, and then we're wracked with guilt when we actually have them. Learning to have is a skill and, on today's episode, I teach you how to start building it.

When we start thinking about career change, we tend to jump into overdrive and want to change everything in the next couple of months. But then we get overwhelmed by all the things that need to be changed. On today's episode, I teach you how to use 5-year plans to get past that overwhelm and figure out exactly what it is you want to do. When you can slow yourself down enough to see that all you need is baby steps, the change becomes much more manageable.

This week I want to talk to you about why sometimes you just need to throw yourself the party. You should always make time to celebrate yourself and since I always want to be an example for you, I'm throwing a party next week and you're invited!

This week I want to talk to you about being selfish. This is kind of a hot topic but I want to argue that you can't help others until you help yourself. Really tuning into your needs and asking what you can do to move yourself a little closer to what you want every day is not a big lift. So if you're always putting everyone else's needs before yours and always putting yourself last, give this episode a listen.

On this week's episode, I'm sharing the lessons I learned from our month in Wyoming. Some of these are lessons I've been learning and relearning for awhile and one totally blew me away.

On this week's episode, I talk with Kathryn Finney, a former Yale-trained epidemiologist turned blogger turned investor and philanthropist. Before Wordpress even existed and you had to print out photos and then scan and upload them online, Kathryn created her blog, The Budget Fashionista. After running that for many years, she sold the blog and founded digitalundivided, a social enterprise focused on helping Black women own their work. She then went on to found and manage Genius Guild, a $20M venture fund. At the onset of the pandemic, she wanted to do more to support Black-women owned businesses so she founded The Doonie Fund, giving out micro-investments from her own personal investment. Most recently, she published Build The D*mn Thing: How To Start A Successful Business If You're Not A Rich White Guy, in it she empowers entrepreneurs to take advantage of their unique networks and resources. Kathryn has such an incredible quitter story and I can't wait for you to hear more from her on the episode.

On this week's episode, I talk with Zubin Pratap, a recovering lawyer turned entrepreneur turned software engineer. After over 14 years in international corporate law, Zubin went into commercial roles and then eventually taught himself to code at 37 and became a software engineer at Google at 39. Today he is still working as an engineer and educator and spends nights and weekends privately coaching committed career changers on how to transition to tech. Zubin is a prime example of how to pivot in your career and follow your dreams but also how you need to shift your thoughts along the way. Find Zubin here: Free webinar: https://futurecoderstraining.com LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/zubinpratap Twitter: @ZubinPratap YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5GcpG4iD0Rtwr5llQPZ9Qg

This week, I dive into emotional maturity. Most of us live in emotional childhood, meaning we want everyone else to fix how we feel. Spoiler alert: there's a bit of tough love coming so prepare yourself. I like to use the analogy of a car accident. If you get hit by a car, the accident is not your fault but it's your responsibility to do the work to heal, to go through PT. Life is not fair. You will never control the things outside of you. But you can control how you react to what happens to you. In this podcast, I teach you the difference between emotional maturity and emotional childhood, how your emotions affect your actions, and how to take responsibility for your own life.

This week on the podcast I have three of my current students join me to talk about the program. I can only sell you on the program so much and so I thought it would be helpful to hear it directly from the people in it. Each one of these ladies came in with different problems seeking different paths and yet, thought work and working on mindset has changed each of their lives in a big way. If you've wanted to know what Pave Your Path can offer you, this episode is for you.

This week I want to talk to you about why it's okay to change your mind. Part of my brand is wanting to change the connotation around quitting because all quitting is is just changing your mind. Can you imagine if we forced ourselves to stick with things we liked when we were younger the way we do with our careers? Your favorite food at 6 years old was ice cream so that's your favorite food for the rest of your life. It's absurd when we think of it like this but we think the same way about our jobs. So this week I want to talk to you about how it's normal to change your mind… about anything.

This week I want to talk to you about why you should go after those big, scary goals. I've already done an episode on destination addiction so you should know that the reason isn't because of what you'll get when you accomplish the goal. There's more to it than just the outcome. So this week I want to offer that it's the journey, not the destination, that's worth it.

Too often, we're stuck in automatic thinking. Our brain just adopts the beliefs and thoughts it was fed from society. It becomes unconscious. Just a repetitive loop of thoughts in the background of our head. But if we're going to create the lives that we truly want to live we have to learn how to think on purpose. Whenever I teach thought work, I often get questions like "okay, I have the thought I wanna change, now what?" So this week I want to help you identify the thoughts to change and teach you how to practice new ones - this exercise is one of my favorites and it is truly life-changing.

This week I want to talk to you about boundaries. I've been getting a lot of questions on the free monthly coaching calls, people saying do I just tolerate bad behavior and manage my mind around it? And I think it's really important that we get clear on what boundaries are and what boundaries are not, where to set them and what will likely happen after you set the boundary. So this week I want to help you understand that the only thing you control is you and how putting up boundaries and managing your mind can free you of the should's.

It's my 200th episode!! WHAT?!?! It blows my mind to think about the fact that I've been putting out a podcast every single week for 200 weeks. It got me thinking about what I had to have believed 4 years ago in order to jump blindly into this project that ended up changing my life.

This week I want to talk to you about your money mindset. I actually did an episode on this before but I realized I had a lot more to say so I needed to do another episode. In our society, we've been made to think that wanting a lot of money is bad and rich people are bad or evil. I thought this too, until I worked on those thoughts, and now I feel completely different. So this week I want to talk to you about how money is just a resource and how changing your thoughts about it can change your life.

This week I want to talk to you about the law of polarity, also called the law of duality. It's the idea that the only way you can experience something is because you have experienced the opposite of it. And if you've been around for awhile, you know I always talk about life being 50/50 - you can only experience the good, if you've experienced the bad. So this week I want to talk to you about how you don't have to be scared of those negative emotions and how you can use them to live the biggest, fullest life you want.

This week's episode is a replay of Episode 50: How Blogging Helped Leslie Samuel Get And Then Quit His Dream Career. It's hard not to smile while listening to today's guest talk about his journey and you'll see why. Leslie's story is something we can all learn so much from. Through determination and a genuine love of teaching biology, he managed to land himself his dream job as a biology professor without getting a Ph.D! Crazy, right? So many of us are stuck believing that we have to go the traditional route to pursue the things we love, but that really isn't the case anymore. Before Leslie landed his dream job, he started out as a high school teacher with a huge love for science and biology. Coincidently, in 2008, he also stumbled upon a way to make money online through blogging. He used his newfound skills to create a blog, Interactive Biology, where he taught Biology the way he wanted. He would make interactive, high-energy videos illustrating various concepts like how an action potential works. It was this very blog that ultimately landed him his dream job. By chance, he had received an email one day about an open teaching position in a doctoral program. Was he qualified? Absolutely not. Did it stop him from applying? Not even in the slightest. Leslie interviewed for the job and made it very clear that he wasn't qualified, but he showed them his blog that was evidence of his knowledge and teaching style. Within an hour of leaving that interview, he received a phone call saying he got the job. Leslie's story is living proof that you don't have to do everything the traditional route. You can feel (and be) unqualified for the job or position that you want, but if you truly love something enough and you put in the work, the opportunities will come! But the best part of Leslie's story is the fact that blogging opened up a whole new world of impact for him. He realized how many lives he was changing by teaching other people how to grow and monetize their blogs. He ultimately decided to leave his dream job as a professor to focus exclusively on his latest blog, Become A Blogger, where he is taking on the mission of "Changing The World One Blog At A Time." Here is what we chat about in this episode: Why you should make a change in your life if you're unhappy. Why you don't need to pursue things the traditional way. How everyone has something they can share with other people. How the technology today makes it easy to start a side hustle. And so much more! Where to find Leslie: Website Resources Mentioned: Interactive Biology YouTube

This week I want to talk to you about the compare and despair cycle so many of us find ourselves in, myself included. We scroll through Instagram, envious of what we see others post, forgetting that social media is a highlight reel. However, comparison and jealousy aren't always bad. If you learn to harness it correctly, it can lead you to the life you want. In this podcast, I detail how to stop the endless comparison and how to utilize your jealousy to figure out what you actually want.

On this week's episode, I talk with Deepa Purushothaman, a former partner at Deloitte turned author and speaker. In her book released earlier this month, Deepa draws on conversations she had with hundreds of women of color about their experiences in the workplace. I think her work is so important and is just the beginning of the change we can create in Corporate America. In this episode, we talk about: How to exercise your power and show up for yourself How colleagues can be advocates and allies to women of color How to find community during a pandemic And so much more Find Deepa here: Website: https://www.deepapuru.com/ To purchase her book: https://www.deepapuru.com/author

This week on the podcast, I'm answering your questions! As you may know, I have a button on my website that lets you leave me a voice message--any burning question you have, any topic I haven't yet covered-- you can record it right there and I'll answer it on the podcast. Today's episode is our first listener Q&A! I'm taking a few of the questions that I haven't answered on the podcast yet and diving in! If you like this episode and want to hear more or you have your own question you want me to answer, go to lessonsfromaquitter.com/podcast and leave me a message!

This week I want to talk to you about my six month group coaching program, Pave Your Path. I'll tell you all about the program - who it's best for, who it's not best for, all the things. I'll also answer some of the commonly asked questions I get during each launch. Doors are currently open now through Friday, March 18th. Join me, I'd love to have you! Sign up at lessonsfromaquitter.com/paveyourpath

This week on the podcast, I have my former student, Cynthia. Before joining the program, Cynthia had been working at the same company for five years, was over-worked and stressed all the time. She worked nights and weekends and was missing out on time with her family. Right before the program began, Cynthia's mother suddenly passed away and she was scared to email her boss to ask for time off. That was the breaking point for her and she knew she couldn't stay stuck in this job anymore. Cynthia is now working a part-time job she loves, she has a four-day weekend every week and enrolled in a course to widen her skill set. But more than that, Cynthia's mindset has totally changed and it's so incredible to listen to her story.

This week on the podcast, I have my former student, Lisa McFadden. From a young age, Lisa knew she wanted to be a writer but let other people talk her into a more stable career path. Burnt out and at her wits' end, she was absolutely miserable when she signed up for my 6 month program. During the program, Lisa had a major a-ha moment that changed her life completely. Since finishing the program, she has resigned from her corporate job, moved states and started her own coaching business helping writers overcome writer's block and develop their own process. Most importantly, she's overcome her own writer's block and is able to make a living doing what she loves. Lisa claims my 6 month program changed her life, listen to the episode to find out how. Find Lisa here: Instagram: @TheWritersMindset Facebook: Lisa McFadden Website: Lisa McFadden Film

Anxiety seems to be more present in our modern lives than ever before. But I think that is partly due to the fact that we fundamentally misunderstand anxiety, which prevents us from reducing it. In this week's episode, I break down what anxiety actually is and what steps to take to help you manage it.

This week I want to talk to you about finding your purpose. Most of us have this notion that there is one purpose to our lives and we should be deeply fulfilled and if we're not, then something is wrong. So we go out and try to find our purpose, but how do you even know if you've found it? This week, I explain the problem in finding your purpose and offer my thoughts on how to reframe this major issue.