Designing a Magical Life with Michele Phillips

Ever wonder how to transform self-doubt into self-love? Join me as Michele Phillips, the transformative voice behind Key Performance, uncovers the secret pathways to personal empowerment. Our conversation is a deep dive into the role of 'wise selfishness' and why prioritizing your wellbeing isn't just beneficial—it's essential. Michele's best-selling insights come alive as we explore the therapeutic effects of journaling, a practice that serves as a mirror reflecting our innermost victories and aspirations.

As we wade through the emotional currents, Michele guides us on how to harness our doubts and transform them into powerful catalysts for growth. Discover the unique ways in which journaling can serve as a creative and relaxing outlet, while also being a strategic tool to reframe our brain's instinct for survival into a blueprint for happiness. This episode is packed with strategies to manage emotions and leverage the doubts that hold us back, turning them into the very energy that propels us forward.

Our journey doesn't stop at self-improvement; it sweeps into the broader realms of positivity and the magic of everyday interactions. We discuss how a simple smile can set off a cascade of joy and emphasize the importance of reshaping core beliefs to cultivate a fulfilling life. Embrace the insights from the final chapters, where we discuss the transformative power of gratitude and maintaining positive habits, not just for ourselves but within the fabric of corporate cultures. Together with Michele, we pave the way to a 'magic carpet life', brimming with happiness and gratitude.

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• Joan Jett
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• Viola Davis
• Ina Garten

Maybe you can help a girl out...***

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• Viola Davis
• Dolly Parton
• Ina Garten
• Joan Jett

Maybe one of you can help me out!

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Transcript

Audra: 0:31

Welcome in everyone and thank you so much for joining me again this week. This week, we're going to have some real heart-to-heart talk, some vulnerable talk, but some necessary conversation. My guest this week is Michelle Phillips, and she is the president of Key Performance. She's also the best-selling author of Happiness is a Habit simple daily rituals that increase energy, improve well-being and add joy to everyday life. Her skills and her superpower is to help you gain more happiness and improve performance, and that's exactly what we're going to discuss today, as she's going to share with us. Share with us her wisdom, her guidance and her encouragement on how we can all be happier, healthier and perform at our very best. It is my pleasure and my honor to introduce to you Michelle. Michelle, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the show.

Michele: 1:28

Oh my gosh. Thank you, audra, for having me. I am so excited to have this fabulous conversation with you.

Audra: 1:33

I am very excited to have you here. As I said in the beginning, we're going to have a heart-to-heart talk with everybody on a really important topic, because I think and I'm speaking for me personally in my observation there's an epidemic of people, specifically women, that are cover over in self-doubt or the would I, should, I, can I? And part of that is from the responses that we're getting externally, from our cultural responses and all of the pressures that are put on females, as well as the conflicting responses and the messages that we're all trying to make sense of. And we're all getting stuck in the middle and we're like where do I fit, what do I do, where do I go? And you are here to help shut out all that noise and help guide us through the self-doubt, the wondering, the conflicting messages and being able to focus on what brings us joy.

Audra: 2:36

Yes so let's us joy. Yes, so let's start there.

Michele: 2:39

Yes, it's so possible. There's a saying looking for love in all the wrong places. It's about loving ourselves first before we look to others for our worth.

Audra: 2:52

That's so hard, though I think that it's harder to learn how to love ourselves than it is to learn how to love somebody else, and I think that that comes from childhood. I mean, I'm a Gen Xer, so I was was my job to take care of my siblings, to make sure that I cooked dinner, that laundry was done, because I had two working parents. That was my job. So the messages were take care of everybody else. And then, when all that's done, then if there's anything left, you can have whatever's left.

Audra: 3:37

So, that self-love was not something that I was taught to do.

Michele: 3:41

Yeah, well, the good news is we can start now, and I call it being wise selfish. The word selfish is such an interesting word in our language because, listening to what you're saying, we're taught not don't be selfish, right. But when your mother says don't be selfish, she's really saying don't do what you want, do what I want. So I always laugh at the double meaning. It's like, well, who's being selfish here? Right? And wise selfish is taking care of yourself first and, you know, having the confidence.

Michele: 4:10

I always use the story if we were hiking someplace, and I've had this happen. I climbed Mount Marcy a couple of years ago. It's one of the tallest peaks in New York State and it was coming to the end of one of the. And we had this fabulous guide leader, one of my friends, shelly I'll give a shout out to Shelly, and Shelly knows the mountain and Shelly's done it before and she's confident. And then one night, when we were looking to camp, because we had to carry our camp, everything on our backs, it was about to rain and we couldn't find a place to put our tents and everything was rocks and crevices and there was no even flat ground, and I saw her start to get anxious and start going faster. And then I started to get anxious because she was she was my leader.

Michele: 4:52

So each woman listening to this, the more you get into your confidence right, you're calm and confident, then people want to follow you. But it takes effort and it's a skill that you cultivate so that when you know when Shelly's fearlessly leading us, I'm just following her anywhere because her confidence is fueling me. So each of us, to be selfish, wise, selfish is to take the time, and I equate it to. This has been debunked. Whether it's true or not, it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert. Nobody would argue that if you sat at a piano every day for 10,000 hours, you'd get better. So if you spent an hour a day giving yourself a five, you know an hour a day giving yourself. If you spent five minutes a day giving yourself a five-minute pep talk, journaling what you love and respect about yourself not in an arrogant way, but in a confident way Confidence is very different than arrogance Then you are of better service to everyone who comes in contact with you.

Audra: 5:56

And it's funny that you mentioned journaling, and I've been hearing more and more about the power of journaling, especially when it comes to rewiring your brain. What is the science behind that? Because, again, coming from a different type of childhood, I was told that your diary is your innermost thoughts, where you talk about boys or whatever the case may be, and I never had one because I was the oldest of four, and I purposely never had one because I didn't want anybody to find it, read it and then expose me it, read it and then expose me.

Michele: 6:42

So I have developed this fear, this anxiety over writing things down. Yeah, and we have so much in common. So I am the oldest as well. I was also taught to have the diary with the lock and the key and dear diary. Today Peter winked at me, or whatever. It was writing these things in it.

Michele: 6:55

So I give a journal to each of my coaching clients. It's the first thing you get from me is a journal, and the reaction is exactly what you said. One is first of all, I don't have time to journal. Secondly, I don't have time, it's a diary thing. And then the other thing is what if someone reads my deep dark thoughts? And I say to them, if you are not willing to get reads my deep dark thoughts, and I say to them, if you are not willing to get into your deep dark thoughts, how do you want someone else to get close to you? We have to be willing to go there, knowing that.

Michele: 7:23

If I always say, if my diaries, my journals, you can read them when I'm gone, and there's a lot of weak moments in there, but that's where you process them. It doesn't make you a weak person to have a weak moment. Right, that's the moment that's separating yourself from what's happening. And the science you asked about. The science which excites me is, in a world that's moving so fast and technology you're doing, there's so many pop-ups and things that are distracting us. On technology, to sit in your favorite chair with your journal with no distractions slows you down, calms you down and you're engaging four out of your five senses, so it gives you clarity. You are kinesthetically writing, you are seeing what you are writing, you are saying it to yourself so you're hearing it. And when I promise you you cannot write for an extended period of time and not gain clarity. Have an aha moment or learn something about yourself. It is so powerful. I always tease. I say my journal is an extension of my arm. Wherever I go, it goes.

Audra: 8:38

I say my journal is an extension of my arm. Wherever I go, it goes. What if you initially feel weird about it? And there's definitely a purposeful reason that we're talking about this, because we're going to talk about some skills. But I want to start at some basic building blocks. But I'm sitting here thinking about and I've been thinking about it for a while to start journaling. But every time I get an anxiety, tightness in my chest and I'm like can I do it? Can I do it? And I know I'm not alone. But I want to start without feeling weird, but maybe I'm going to feel weird.

Michele: 9:06

No, but make it fun. So to me, a journal should be something that gives you relief, not anxiety. So if you're reading a book, you could take notes in your journal on all the good capture, all your good ideas that you get. You're a podcaster, you know you're. You're like you said today I got this great idea for women's history month, right. So when that that's what you use your journal to capture your good ideas I always tell my men clients to. You know, leonardo da Vinci always had a journal. So you use it for capturing your good ideas. You use it for taking notes of books you're reading. You use it to write down your wins, your victories. You don't have to go right into the deep stuff, right. Just start making it a valuable resource for yourself.

Michele: 9:47

One of the exercises in positive psychology is what they call your best possible self exercise, and the studies have shown that if you write in your journal or anywhere what your best possible self looks like in present terms, for like a week or so, you start to shift how you feel, and it's been researched and proven. So you don't even have to write about your deep, dark secrets. You could just write about, you know Audra, you know Audra 2.0 or whatever that looks like. You know, and I've done it with everything. I do it for my. You know, if I'm giving a presentation, I write how the presentation goes. I do it with my husband. If I want us to have a good vacation, I do it with my just who I am as a person. I want to be a more giving, loving person. So again, it's called the best possible self-exercise.

Michele: 10:32

I got that from Sonia Lubominski I'm not sure I'm saying her name right. She wrote the how of Happiness. You can Google it. You can always write to me and I'll send it to you because I have it all typed up. But again, use it. I color in my journal. I draw pictures A lot of times. I listen to books on Audible and while I'm listening I just sit there with my pretty. I have the whole case of pretty color markers and the art of just doodling something that no one is ever going to see while I'm listening just relaxes me.

Audra: 11:02

Well, that sounds fun and that's what you want. I want it to be fun. Coloring sounds fun. I mean, who doesn't enjoy sitting and coloring? I mean we doodle. I mean, let's face it, we're on conference calls and we're doodling. We know. You know who you are. I am guilty. You know who you are.

Michele: 11:21

And I'm looking for my journal. I don't. It's over there so I won't move. But even looking back at my pretty color pictures, that just makes me happy to look at them and it raises my energy just when I thumb through my journal.

Audra: 11:32

Okay. So, michelle, I will try this. I will try and give up the anxiety and start small and I will report back. And the reason why I wanted to start there is because it's a tool yes, using your doubts as energy, using your emotions as units of energy. And when Michelle first mentioned this to me, I thought she's out of her mind. She's. What is she talking about with, with doubts being energy, and my emotions, I mean, because sometimes my emotions get the best of me. Yeah, but when I sat and thought about it, I was like, okay, when I'm feeling anxiety, when I'm feeling doubt, when I'm feeling insecure, I am producing energy. Yeah, and I think what she's talking about is using that energy for good rather than evil.

Michele: 12:31

Exactly, and managing it and knowing that you get to steer your thoughts, which will steer how you feel.

Audra: 12:38

So walk us through that. And we established a building block of the mind-body connection, of your brain, your eyes, your hand writing things out. There's some synergy with that. Help us walk us through that further of. Okay, you have. You have all these crazy emotions going on in your head. How do we use it for fuel?

Michele: 13:01

Yeah, so I love I. You know the old Einstein quote. You know, energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be transmuted. So energy can only be changed into another form of energy. And realizing that doubts are normal, fear is normal. Our brains are wired to look for fear and to keep us safe. You know, look for you know they always want to keep us safe, right? So our brains are not wired to keep us happy.

Michele: 13:24

And I always say, in the days of, you know, running from, you know, looking for food and shelter and running from bears, that was great that we had this fight and flight system In our, you know, 21st century. Most of us are not wanting things, so what we're doing is our fight and flight goes on. We're fighting with our own consciousness, we're fighting with our own doubts. So doubts are just. To me it's like hitting the rumble strips on the road when you're driving, right, you're going along fine, through your day, everything's good. And then you look at an email and triggers something in you and it's like you're hitting those rumble strips and then I always say stop. But the minute you get that funny feeling in your gut, stop and think what just happened. And usually I find I said something I shouldn't have said. I committed to something I didn't want to commit to.

Michele: 14:09

I went on social media and saw someone just got published or went on a great vacation. There's all these things that trigger us, and when I can find out where it came from, I realize, michelle, I call it fake fear. Unless someone's bleeding or I need immediate assistance, I'm creating stories in my head based on what's going on in my world. So if it's fake fear, I'm not bleeding, there's nobody chasing me. I'm sitting in my nice office on a sunny day. Then I have the power to guide my thoughts and, kind of, the shamans have a saying name it to tame it.

Michele: 14:45

What am I feeling? Am I feeling frustration? Am I feeling frustration? Am I feeling disappointment? Am I feeling doubt? Once I name what I'm feeling, I then can say okay, where's it coming from and what's a little bit of a better way to look at this? I'll give you a great example I've been using in my classes recently.

Michele: 15:04

Social media is just not good for us, right? You have to use social media in a conscious way, and I've been asking people, and even with myself, like how long does it take me when I go on social media before I might just start feel bad about my life because I don't have a great life, like it looks, like everybody else, everybody thinks everybody else's life is better, right, the grass is greener. And so say, I go on social media and I see somebody just bought a boat or something and I go, ah, I wish you know I can't, and I feel yucky, right. So I name the feeling I feel. What is the feeling?

Michele: 15:34

I'm jealous, I'm jealous, this person got a boat. Well, jealousy is not really where I want to be. So what do I do? I really want a boat. Well, I'm kind of. Now I'm angry at myself for feeling jealous. So Now I'm angry at myself for feeling jealous.

Michele: 15:47

So jealousy on the emotion scale is low. Anger is a little more energy. Think about and I'm going to back this up a little bit, audra, so keep with me If you think about emotions as energy, a depressed person has no energy, so depressed can't get out of bed. No energy. Jealousy has got a lot more energy than depression. Right, I'm jealous, I'm up and I'm, you know, ready for revenge. Right, I'm jealous. I'm up and I'm ready for revenge, right?

Michele: 16:11

Then anger, like maybe I'm just angry. Oh my God, I'm getting mad at myself. Why am I getting mad? Because this person got a boat. That has nothing to do with me.

Michele: 16:15

So now, anger still isn't where I want to be, but I'm starting to move myself up the ladder. I call it the ladder up technique, like one rung at a time on a ladder and every rung you feel a little bit relief in your body and the energy starts to dissipate. So then I say to myself you know what? I'm just a little disappointed. I need a vacation. I really don't want a boat, but I would love a vacation. So now I'm at disappointment Again, not where I want to be, but better than jealousy.

Michele: 16:42

So then, after disappointment, I think to myself can I plan a vacation for the next six, in the next six months? Yeah, so now I move up to hope and you literally feel relief in your body and you realize that you just you're sitting in your room by yourself, talking yourself, you're soothing yourself with your words and your thoughts and your perspective, versus the opposite of corkscrewing yourself down the emotional scale. Right, this person got a boat and everybody's doing better than me and I can never get ahead, right, are those things true? No, it's all this chatter. Your previous guest was great. What was it? Dethrone the inner critic or whatever.

Michele: 17:22

Yeah, so it's all the same, right, it's like no matter what works for you, you know you can soothe yourself, and that's what I want to teach people, because an emotion is an electromagnetic unit of energy that collects another emotion just like it. So if you catch the doubts quickly, it doesn't build the momentum, but if you don't catch it and it spirals, man, you might as well just you know, write the day off. Right, I'm not going to get out of this negative rant, I'm going down, but tomorrow's another day.

Audra: 17:54

So when you vibrate at a higher frequency, what happens? I'm really curious about that. If you have raised your frequency to be hope or even beyond that, happy, well that might be fun happy. What happens when might be fun happy. What happens when you get there?

Michele: 18:10

Yeah. So when I wrote my first book now 10 years ago, this book was published my first book and it was your mental, physical, spiritual and emotional habits. And the research at the time, which is still true, said that if you did something for yourself daily mentally, physically, spiritually and emotionally just felt better. Right, most people don't do well because they don't feel good. So mentally, you're thinking as a habit. Physically, are you taking, you know, getting sleep, eating foods that your body likes. Spiritually, do you connect to something bigger than you? And emotionally, are you cultivating a relationship with yourself first and then others.

Michele: 18:47

So after I wrote the book, I became like the poster child. So now it's like oh, now I got to be happy and I got to do this. Not that I have to, but it would be funny when I would get in a bad mood, my dad would say Michelle, remember, happiness is a habit. And I'm like I know, dad, but I'm still human and I'm having a bad day. But when I started really working on myself, my energy got higher and I started calling these days magic carpet days and sometimes the things order that I teach. I can't teach them to you by telling you. You have to experience it for yourself. I always say you try it on for 30 days and see what happens. But when you start to get in this, like in the positive psychology, they would call it flow, a flow state right, where all the great artists and great songs and great sculpture is made. The more you stay in that flow state, good things come to you and the Uber driver's nice and you get upgraded on the airplane and I can't even describe it. I was like this was a magic carpet day.

Michele: 19:47

So then I created what I called the set the table technique, which is anticipating a good day. So now I'm practicing these habits mentally, physically, spiritually and emotionally. Habits require no energy. You do them without thinking, which I love, right. Once you have them established, they work for you. And now I equate it to like Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving day, most people set the table. They put out a beautiful tablecloth, some nice dishes, napkins. You set the table and you anticipate you are going to have a good day. Before anyone gets there, you've done all the shopping and the prepping, so I want people to do that same thing for your day, right, and that's what the best self-exercise I talked about earlier. It's like setting the table for your life. It's helping you anticipate a good day before it even happens. And again, I can't prove this to you in words, but I can tell you, try it on and you be the judge, and then let me know.

Audra: 20:42

Okay, tell me easy, easy steps, easy steps to help me set the table for my day, because you know we're busy. We need easy, because everything else in our day is likely going to be hard. So let's start our day with easy. Teach us how to set the table.

Michele: 21:01

Yeah, so I'm going to even now. You got me thinking of another fun exercise. There's so many fun exercises here. So, literally, first of all, I tell people stop saying we're busy, right, Because we, we, we are our words are our reality, right? So I always like to say I find the time for what's important. Find the time for what's important. There's a gazillion things we can all do, but we can't do it all. So you know, making the time for what's important, and even if it's that five minute pep talk that you give yourself in the morning, when you're literally you can't talk when you're brushing your teeth. But you could talk to yourself while you're brushing your teeth and say I sing, I'm a little corny, I'm very corny.

Michele: 21:37

I sing the Kellogg's jingle every morning before I even get out of bed. Kellogg's used to have this commercial it's going to be a great day. And I just sing it to myself, and sometimes I sing it out loud, and then you look in the mirror and you say we're making this a great day, we are going to be love, we are going to give love. Whatever challenge comes our way, we're going to figure it out, because life is full of ups and downs. So you're starting to just put that energy ahead of you before and then it's kind of like if I'm just going to the post office or going to the store, grumpy people, negative people, they're everywhere, but I'm going to glow and flow around them, I'm going to smile at you. I'm not going to take it personally.

Michele: 22:15

So you're starting to set the table and then you start, when you smile at someone, say you smile at nine out of 10 people at least 10 people nine will smile back and one will go. You got nine smiles. So it's playing with this energy of life is an echo chamber. We think, oh, when you're nice to me, then I'll be nice to you. I'm like, no, no, you got to put it out there and it's coming back. It's just like echoing out in the mountains. So I'm on a roll here, so I'm going to just keep going. Another thing I do to amplify I mean, we need this.

Michele: 22:50

The other thing I play with my clients to amplify ease is something I got from Esther Hicks. She said a long time ago she put a bunch of easy buttons around her house. So I went and bought an easy button and I said to my husband, let's play, this is going to be the year of ease and fun. And he's like whatever, michelle, you're always coming up with some silly games. So I put the easy button in the kitchen and I said let's just amplify all the easy things in our life. Most people amplify the hard things oh the traffic. Oh, my boss, oh too many emails. So we're just all day long talking about the hard things. So we started out just having fun. Cook dinner. Hit the button. It goes, that was easy. Hit wash the dishes. Hit the button. Like we were just being silly and laughing because the button talks back to you, the staples button.

Michele: 23:33

Then my husband booked a flight the wrong week and my car driver sends me a text and he says I'm picking you up on Thursday. And I'm like no, we're not going until next week. So we went out. I said, oh my gosh, gary, you booked us on the wrong week, so now we have to call the airlines and you think, oh, here we go. But I said, no, stay positive, stay positive. We call the airlines.

Michele: 23:56

We get some fabulous woman who her son just got some awards, so she's in a great mood. She flips our flight to the day we need it. She upgrades us. We don't have to pay any extra money. We hang up the phone and we're like that was easy, right, hit the button and it works. When you start to amplify the ease, you start to amplify what's going right. Even my stepson was here last summer and we were doing the easy thing and they were like whatever. And then when we saw them the next time they live in England they're like can we have one of those buttons? We get it now? Right, like you have to think about it. And then, even if you just order left this, call anyone listening and just started going oh, that was easy, oh, that was easy. Your easy things far outnumber the hard things. But we amplify the hard things by talking about them and giving them energy and attention.

Audra: 24:51

So, even though I mean, you're giving us some really simple things for us to do and in the beginning we might feel a little silly, but maybe that's part of the fun, because if we feel a little silly, I mean silly is a higher vibration than angry, isn't it?

Michele: 25:07

Yeah, and not taking it so seriously, Like just have fun, I think, the less personal we are. And I'm very deep and I'm very spiritual, but I'm also very playful and it's you know, giving yourself that grace to be playful.

Audra: 25:25

Well, you've given us, first of all, three amazing, easy things to do. Write in a journal, write things down and, michelle, I promise I'm going to try this, I will.

Audra: 25:37

I'm keeping you to it in a journal, set the table every single day before you get into your day and expect a good day. And then we're going to glorify that was easy. I mean we start looking around. Is making dinner hard? No, it's never hard, it's easy. We just don't necessarily want to do it, but in the grand scheme of things it's a piece of cake. Taking out the garbage same thing. It's not hard, we just don't always want to do it, but it's really easy. So I will try that.

Michele: 26:17

I will try that. It's so fun yeah.

Audra: 26:18

There's mundane things that we do every day, long and we feel dread. But maybe if I go and get an easy button it won't feel so so much and it talks.

Michele: 26:26

it's so funny. I give them to all my clients. So I've got a box of them in my house because they're just so fun and people love them.

Audra: 26:33

Okay, Give us another fun thing that we can do, because everybody's listening going Michelle, you're cool, but this sounds a little bit wacky, but I think it's so. I think it's so crazy. It might just work. So give us another one that we can do that is not going to take that much.

Michele: 26:51

Yeah, I mean simple things like it's the energy. So let's go, let's back up a little bit. Our energy, our beliefs, what we believe creates our thoughts, which creates our emotions, which create how we feel. So when we're not feeling good about something, you know, usually there's a belief that's, you know, hindering us. And you know again I listened to your podcast previous a belief that served us at 15 does not serve us in our fifties.

Michele: 27:18

So it's always constantly looking at you know, is this belief serving me? Is there another way to look at this? And you know, even the other day, talking to my accountant, he's so funny, I've had really great years and I've been. I mean, I always do well, but the years fluctuate when you're in business for yourself. And he said to me Michelle, out of all the years I've known you, he's like good years, bad years, mediocre years, you know, but middle of the road years, he's like you live a rich life. And that perspective rich in, like experience, not just in dollars, right. So it's sometimes realizing that ideas and perspective can change your life.

Michele: 27:58

So if you're not feeling good about something, my next tool is what's another way to look at it? I call it the optimistic spin in my book right, what is another way to look at it? And if I can't come up with one, I pray for or I ask the universe, you know, show me another way to look at this. Because if I can just loosen that belief and realize that believing this is just not getting me the feelings I want, right, and if I can shift my belief a little bit, the relief, the fun of it, that's what I want people to have fun with these exercises. I don't want them to be like. I want you to get from the day, not through the day, and do that by creating joyful moments.

Audra: 28:42

Can you say that one more time? You said something that I'm like I need to remember this. I want to write it on my on my mirror about not getting through the day. Please repeat that one more time.

Michele: 28:55

You get from the day, not through the day, and you get from the day. I mean all this, like you know. Be here now and be in the moment. All these things are. We say they're cliche, but they're ancient wisdom, right, there's so much wisdom in these sayings and that seems so cliche. And I love the other I saw another one of your podcasts about. I think it was the energy of gratitude, right? So when you're a grateful person, when you appreciate, your energy rises, you feel better. And this is and this I'll bring back this with the research, which is what I love about positive psychology, and I'll back this with the research, which is what I love about positive psychology the research shows that when you get a new car, get married or have some great event, your happiness level rises for about three months, but then it goes back to normal again. So happiness, what they found in the research.

Michele: 29:43

50% of your good feelings come from your genes. That's a lot. So your parents gave you these genes. You didn't have a choice. 10% come from your circumstances, meaning where you live, you know that kind of thing. And then the 40% is what you think do and how you behave. So every single day. 50% is in your control. So it's what is it in my control to think? What is it in my control to think? What is it in my control to do? How should I behave? What are my beliefs? All these things add up to having one good day after another, and then you're having I call it, the magic carpet life.

Audra: 30:19

I want a magic carpet life. I don't think anybody would argue with you and say, no, I don't want that. I think everybody wants a magic carpet life, and I mean 50% most people would choose that really good off yeah.

Michele: 30:31

Yeah, yeah, oh. 50% in your control, yes, and that's the thing it's. You know, these practices are not hard, but they have to be consistent. So it's the consistency that builds the muscle. It's kind of like if you went to the gym and you went to the gym for 30 days. You still look the same.

Michele: 30:50

I just read, oh my gosh, the Compound Effect, which was so good, by I think it's Darren Hardy, I think his name is, and he talks about three gentlemen like one is having an extra drink this week, one is eating just a little bit less every day 125 calories, a bowl of cereal less, and you don't see any difference. 15 months, 20 months. It's not till the 35th month that you actually start to see the one guy's gaining weight and the other person is losing weight, right. So we have to be smarter than that and know that I wrote in my journal today and I walked around the block and I hit the easy button and my life hasn't changed right. You have to be smarter that the consistency of this over as little as 30 to 60 days, you know, will start to show for you.

Audra: 31:36

Now you teach this. This isn't just individuals that you're teaching. You're teaching some really high profile corporate clients and I can see how this can be transformative in individuals, from person to person. How does it transform corporations?

Michele: 31:56

Yeah, it's. Someone said to me once and I love it he came to me on the break and he said you bring soul to the workplace. And I thought, oh, that is what I do, because you know, workplace is just a bunch of people, right, it's not, you know, we think of it as this big, bad corporation, but it's just made of individuals. So I go in with the same content and sometimes it's, you know, we work it through. You know business habits versus personal habits, but it's all you know. It's.

Michele: 32:24

Each person is affecting the other person and that's what we have to realize. We have such an effect and influence on each other. I always say if you're hanging out with the fast food crowd, you're eating fast food, right, but if you're hanging out with the healthy crowd, then you're going someplace else for lunch. So when each person in an organization starts, you know, taking responsibility for how they respond and managing their emotions, managing their nervous system, in the emotional intelligence field, they've proven that each individual is having 27 emotions an hour. Right. Now, think about in a corporation, how many emotions are flying right Every hour 27, every person's having 27 emotions. So the people that are emotionally intelligent are the ones that are doing better right. Your emotions have intelligence and they're speaking to you, but most of the times we're not listening to them. We're just, you know, we're just pushing them away.

Audra: 33:22

We're, we're loaded little walking talking batteries. Then is what you're telling?

Michele: 33:26

me yeah.

Audra: 33:27

I mean, we have the power of influence not only over ourselves but everybody around us, without saying a word.

Michele: 33:36

Yes, and think about that, audra, think about you know, you could be sitting around with a group of people and one person walks in the room and the energy shifts. You're like bam, something just happened. Nothing was said, but you feel it. So people like to say think before you speak. And I say think and feel before you speak, right?

Michele: 33:54

So if I have to have, if I'm giving you a performance review or I have to have a discussion with you that is something that I'm dreading, or I'm afraid that you might take it the wrong way I have to get my heart in the right place. So if I connect my head to my heart and I know that I'm having this conversation with an employee because my intention is to help them be better, then it's easy to have the conversation right. When I'm just thinking, I'm calling out what they're not doing right or their weaknesses, then it's harder to have that conversation. But when I have your best interest at heart, I'm here to help you, I'm here to serve you, and that's how organizations are changed when people really start to connect their head to their heart. And the word communication even it comes from the Latin communicare to have a heart to heart, to connect.

Audra: 34:42

Yeah, when you strip it back that way and realize that we're just a bunch of people that happen to work collectively in the same space, we have so much power, even though we think and feel that we don't, we actually do.

Michele: 34:57

And I think we're told that we don't. So that's what I want people to. I always say that you have, you always have, more power than you think that we don't. So that's what I want people to. I always say that you have, you always have, more power than you think I. I've worked in so many organizations where I've met a person who has no title and no direct reports, but has the power, the influence, because of how they treat other people.

Audra: 35:15

And that can work both ways. Yeah, good and bad.

Michele: 35:19

Yes, we're here only for good, though. Yes, we're here only for good, though.

Audra: 35:22

Yes. Well then, I have a challenge for everybody and I think that this might be worthwhile, and Michelle has given us four really, really good exercises that we can do every single day. Pick one. You don't have to do all four Exactly. Pick one and do it every day for a month. You don't have to do all four. Pick one and do it every day for a month. And I want to know how that has affected your life, how you feel, what kind of external response you're getting. Just keep doing it and let me know, and then I'm going to feed all that back to Michelle and we can talk about it later. I mean, I'm really curious to see what could happen in a month with just doing one of those things. I mean, what if?

Michele: 36:07

we should have a follow-up podcast in a couple of months and see how it went. We most definitely should I mean what?

Audra: 36:11

if it's just easy buttons? What if we, just for fun, go get an easy button and just put that around? I mean one thing, do one thing and let me know, and then Michelle and I will come back on and we'll discuss all the results. That might be fun. What do you think?

Michele: 36:26

I would love that. That would be so fun.

Audra: 36:38

Let's do that Now before we run out of time. You had some exciting event this week that just released on I think it's on your website and a partner's website about your actual studies and teachings on video, so let us know what's going on with that. That's super cool.

Michele: 36:54

Thank you. Thank you, I'm very excited. So it just went live like two days ago. It's not on my website yet, but it's on the GARD group. It's G G-A-A-R-Dcom, and my book Happiness is a Habit, is now a video series. It's a learning video series that's available for one individuals can buy it or corporations and it is 18 videos. Basically, I've taken my learnings and everything I put in the book Happiness is a Habit. I made 18 videos and it's an 80 page workbook that I work so hard on, which I love. It's beautiful, and so you watch a video, you do some of the exercises. Watch a video, do the exercises, and it will be up on my website, but right now it's just on guardgroupcom, who is my partner.

Audra: 37:38

Because it's brand new. Yeah, it's literally brand new. I will do this. I will link that in the show notes so everybody can have access to it and go check it out and go get your book. I mean, happiness is a habit. Let's do that. We have all kinds of other habits. Why don't we add happiness into our repertoire and see what happens? Now, before I let you go, I want to make sure that you have an opportunity to tell everybody where they can reach you, whether to work with you individually, want to ask you questions. Maybe there's leaders out there that want to go. Hmm, maybe my organization or my team needs a little makeover, emotional makeover. Where can they find you?

Michele: 38:25

Yeah, so the bulk of my work is in corporations, but I do also one-on-one personal work. My website is key to unlock. It's the K E Y, the number two, unlockcom, k E Y, the number two, u N L O C, kcom. And my Instagram is at key performance, which is the name of my company.

Audra: 38:46

I'm curious why is it key to unlock? What are we unlocking?

Michele: 38:50

Our potential, our potential, our happiness. I've been in business 20 years and it's been different iterations, but it was unlocking the door to happiness, wisdom, that kind of thing.

Audra: 39:01

I'll take it, I'll absolutely take it. I mean, let's make thing. I'll take it, I'll absolutely take it. I mean, let's make life one less mystery. Yes, let's unlock the door to whatever is possible. Well, michelle, this is first of all. Time has flown today. I'm watching the clock going. Oh my gosh, this has just flown by. This is my favorite part of the show, my absolute favorite part of the show, because I don't get to interrupt you. So this is the part where I get to sit back and let you have an intimate moment directly with the audience. So, rochelle, the mic is yours.

Michele: 39:40

Oh my gosh. So you asked me earlier, before we started, what would I tell my younger self? So I'm going to go there. Is that what we want to do?

Audra: 39:47

We can do that Absolutely.

Michele: 39:49

Yeah. So what would I tell my younger self? And the biggest thing for me is to be bold and to believe in myself. Anyone listening to this? Put yourself out there and if you're afraid of being embarrassed, go out and embarrass yourself, because I promise you you will live. And embarrassment is like a cloud of like. It's almost like this ether, that when you get embarrassed it just comes out of your skin but it dissipates and then you realize I'm still okay, because there's a saying I love at the end of the day, when you're playing a game, all the pieces go back in the box and at the end of the day, we're going back in the box. So it's be bold. Just go out there and prove to yourself that you know it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks Like. Just be bold. What are they going to do? Eat you, have some fun and make it a great life.

Audra: 40:39

What a great, great piece of advice to leave us with. So thank you for, first of all, walking us through and giving us some amazing skills that we can go and exercise and put into place today, and it won't cost us a thing. It might cost us. Maybe our disappointment might cost that. Love it, yes.

Michele: 41:00

The price you pay for happiness.

Audra: 41:03

Is, yes, that you get to leave all that negativity behind. So thank you for giving us those tips and those skills and those exercises that we can walk towards happiness. I appreciate you spending this time with us today out of your very busy schedule to help educate us and to come alongside us and be so empathetic in your work. So thank you very much.

Michele: 41:26

Thank you for being just an engaged, wonderful interviewer. I know not everybody's seeing us, but your smile, your energy, I'm feeding off it. So it's just wonderful to be in a co-collaboration with you, Audra.

Audra: 41:37

Well, thank you, and I also talk with my hands. People can't see it, but I talk with my hands, so that helps. Thank you so much for being here, and I want to thank all of you for listening, and we'll see you again next time.