1. Perfectionism is our biggest enemy, as an ex-perfectionist, let me tell you that perfectionism is our best excuse at convincing ourselves that our “inaction” is for the right reasons. I ditched perfectionism and it is so liberating and always remember, when you can’t seem to make a decision, “inaction” is also a decision in itself!
2. You can always make life worse than it is and you can always make life better than what it seems. Your attitude determines your life more than anywhere you are at, anything you have or anyone who can influence you. It’s all for you! Yes, you are the problem and you have the solution as well. Your well of wisdom is already there.
3. You will succeed only if you call the shots on what success means to you! Don’t let society friends or family tell you what success looks like, you get to decide for yourself!
4. Life has no peak, the summit will continuously change as you climb. So enjoy the exploration, it’s not all about reaching the top, it’s about the journey and the wrong path might lead you to beautiful discoveries and always remember difficult roads lead to the most beautiful destinations. 
5. You can’t have everything that you want in life, but there is always a way to get what you want, believe it in every fiber of your being and you will get it! 
   
6. When in doubt, be calm. It’s the hardest to stay calm when you’re in doubt, which is exactly when you actually need to be calm.
   
7. Don’t ever make important decisions while you are angry. Wait at least 3 days and see how you feel before making that move.
   
8. The amount of money you have or the number of luxury items you own has nothing to do with the level of your happiness. Happiness is the small conveniences or pleasures in our life that occur on a daily basis, it is here now, not elsewhere. 
   
9. The easiest work is the work you are passionate about and enjoy doing with a purpose and smile! Wake up smiling knowing you are making a contribution to a positive world. Be alive, because the world needs more alive people. 
   
10. Stress kills, don’t play with debt. Save early, always have savings for contingencies and never be in bad debt again. 

Listen to the complete episode to hear all 38 lessons. 

Background music: Motivate Me by Mixaund | https://mixaund.bandcamp.com

Guest featured in this episode:

Connie Benjamin is the #1 International Best Selling Author of the book Women With Fire, international speaker, and podcast host. After sharing her message from the stage, she realized women entrepreneurs who want to live their purpose through their work without losing their family, or themselves needed a system to guide them in how to do it.

Connie developed a process called the My Fire Within System to help women live their purpose, increase prosperity, and create passionate relationships. The My Fire Within System helped Connie fall in love with her husband again, replace her day job income, and find renewed love in being a stay-at-home mom with her three daughters.

Things you will learn in this episode:

• The time in her life when she went through a challenge or felt like giving up?

• What is one thing that she wishes someone told her that she had to learn the hard way?

• How can we achieve any goals?

• What is one resource that she loves to help her grow?

• And much more

Guest featured in this episode:

Things you will learn in this episode:

• Her early years, what were some of her upbringing beliefs? 
• When she told her parents she wanted to be a fashion designer, what was their reaction? 
• She had a dream job at Calvin Klein but wanted more. So in 2012, she went against the advice of everyone she knew, and took a leap of faith and quit her job to launch The House of Perna. We talked about what kind of mindset work she needed to do on herself in order for this to happen?
• The beautiful story behind why she named her brand The House of Perna instead of just her name.
• She appeared on the hit TV series Project Runway, how that publicity pivoted her business? 
• What she wish she knew when first started her business? 
• And much more

I say this a lot, your emotions are valid.

Why?

Because our emotions are rooted in our subconscious mind, so as long as we are a living breathing being, we’re going to have emotions. 

But in a worst-case scenario, we get emotionally hijacked.

An emotional hijack refers to a personal emotional response that is immediate, overwhelming, and out of measure with the actual stimulus because it has been triggered from a much more significant emotional threat.

This term was first coined by psychologist Daniel Goleman in 1995. Another way to explain this is emotional hijack is a situation in which the part of your brain that serves as your emotional processor, hijacks, or even bypasses your normal reasoning process.

An example of an emotional hijack can be when you suddenly snap at someone when they have only said one word. It isn’t really that word that triggered the anger, it’s the emotions behind what previously happened. You might regret your own reactions and hate yourself for being a slave to your own emotions.

You become programmed to react in a certain way to a specific set of circumstances and might feel out of self-control. If you ever felt this way, then you are being hijacked by your emotions. 

To break away from the hijacking you really only have two choices:

Choice #1 You can forget what happened, move on like any other normal day and react the same way the next time you’re faced with similar circumstances. Or,

Choice #2  you can try to sort through your thoughts and feelings, like pieces of a puzzle. 

You need to do some inner work and dig for the answer to WHY you reacted the way you did, you can alter and train your default reaction so that your response would be different next time. 

Some good self-reflection questions to contemplate your behavior are: 

• What is the real reason I reacted the way I did? 
• Did my reaction help me or harm me? 
• How will I feel about this in an hour? How about In a  month? Or A year later? 
• What would I do differently if I could do it again? 
• What will I say to myself the next time this happens that would help me think more clearly and react differently? 

Get yourself thinking, do these reflections often, recognize your emotional behaviors. Instead of feeling guilty for what you did, turn those emotional hijacks into a catalyst for intentional thoughts and reflection, and of course, the ultimate goal is eventually, to change. 

A lot of people use emotions and feelings interchangeably and I think that’s not very accurate. Feelings are the reactions to circumstances that can come after the emotion. For example, we sometimes would say I’m feeling very stressed out after this happened. But the FEELING can be different for everyone. Someone else might feel excited after the exact circumstances.

So you see, we get to determine our thoughts after the situation, and that in turn determines our feelings towards the situation. So the good news is you can control your thoughts or practice changing negative thoughts into positive thoughts, that is one major way to stop emotional hijack.

Other ways to stop emotional hijacking include focusing on taking longer deeper breaths before reacting or change of scenery. You can literally also get up and walk elsewhere. If you are having a conversation, you can delay the conversation or even come back to it rather than allowing impulsive reactions to cloud your judgment or have a negative impact on your words and behaviors. 

Always always always remember that our goal is to be maintaining a composed state of awareness, and being mindful and very conscious of your reactions.

Choose your thoughts intentionally.

Believe that you are in control and even when you’re being hijacked, you will have the absolute power to stop it right there.

You are the CEO of this organization called YOUR life!

Guest featured in this episode:

Chantal is an Instagram Strategist and coach.

She helps service providers and personal brands grow a profitable, aligned brand by being fully self-expressed in their marketing. 

Things you will learn in this episode:

• Who should be using IG stories?

• What should you be posting on Instagram stories?

• When you feel unsure of what to say or what to post, what to do? 

• A few examples of good story prompts?

• What apps she uses to make your IG stories?

• What are some things you can do now TO SIGN MORE CLIENTS?

• What are some ways to start convos with ideal clients from Stories into DMs?

• What are some top mistakes she sees people make with their IG stories?

• Actions that you can do to tell the IG Algorithm to push up your content?

• And much more