Thanksgiving wasn't just about the turkey and cranberry sauce; it's a lesson in being fully present in the moment, despite the travel, mixed personalities and needing one more oven!
Let's talk about the amazing benefits of being more flexible in our day-to-day lives. Starting the day with intention and a focus on the present can supercharge your happiness and productivity levels for the whole day! I also introduce an incredible personal growth app that's been a game-changer in my own development journey. Remember, life may throw us curveballs, but how we handle them is what truly counts. Tune in for an episode packed with insights and inspiration.
Thanksgiving wasn't just about the turkey and cranberry sauce; it's a lesson in being fully present in the moment, despite the travel, mixed personalities and needing one more oven!
Let's talk about the amazing benefits of being more flexible in our day-to-day lives. Starting the day with intention and a focus on the present can supercharge your happiness and productivity levels for the whole day! I also introduce an incredible personal growth app that's been a game-changer in my own development journey. Remember, life may throw us curveballs, but how we handle them is what truly counts. Tune in for an episode packed with insights and inspiration.
If you've been listening to this podcast for a while or receiving my newsletters, then you know I am a big fan of Flo Desk.
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If you haven't heard of Flo Desk before, it's a beautiful, intuitive email marketing tool that I use to consistently email my list. Before I signed up for Flo Desk, I rarely sent out newsletters and I wasn't leveraging email marketing to its full potential in my business. I struggled to find a tool that was easy to use, with customizable designs that helped me stay true to my brand. But once I decided to move to Flo Desk, the difference it made in my business was huge. Since signing up over three years ago, I've sent countless emails. It's become a vital tool for me to market my business and make money. Here are some of the top reasons I love using it. First, it's really intuitive and easy to use. They have tons of beautiful templates that give me a starting point and ensure my emails look great on all devices. I can load my brand elements, like my logo, colors and fonts, so that each email looks consistent and on-brand. And it's so easy to create subscriber segments through Flo Desk's opt-in forms, which helps me organize my list and send my subscribers hyper-personalized content based on their interests. They also have a brilliant analytics tool which tells me really useful information about my subscribers and how they're interacting with my emails. There are so many things I love about using Flo Desk, but one of the best parts is that I can have unlimited emails and subscribers for one flat rate forever. If you want to check it out, you can head to my link in the show notes, which will give you 50% off your first year. Flo Desk has definitely been one of the tools that has had the biggest impact on my marketing, and I can't wait for you to check it out.
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Hello, friends, and welcome back to another episode of Elevate with Erica. Let's get into elevating today, shall we? So we've all experienced that life throws us challenges right when we think we got everything all figured out. Maybe you had some of those last week if you're in the US. I know Thanksgiving is a busy week for people. Right when we have our plan down and we are on a roll, something comes up, and it's how we handle those moments, in the moments that truly matters. So today let's talk about how being present and getting responsible for joy we feel in our life on the day to day can help us handle those moments a little better in the moment, because I always think like after the fact well, I should have done this, I could have done that right. But in the moment it's like your stress level is high and unexpected thing has come your way and it's boom, you're in defense and react mode. So I can think about it later, what I should have done, what I could have done better, but I want to talk about giving ourselves a better chance to get it right in the moment.
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I'll also be sharing some exciting takeaways from the personal growth app that I'm now aligned with and able to offer you. If you have received my email a couple of Fridays ago, then you know that it had been a week full of unexpected challenges. But here's the thing even though I had my week totally mapped out and organized and had to do a lot of rescheduling to make those unexpected challenges work, I got to Friday feeling totally satisfied, not because I got to check everything off, but because, as each curveball came, I intentionally chose flexibility. So I took a look at the curveball as okay. How serious is this, this new demand placed on me, this new ask or request from someone else? If it's important to me, what can be arranged to make this work and how can I make this easier on myself? What truly matters here?
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And it got me thinking about the gift of being present. No matter what life throws at you, whether you're at work, at home or anywhere else, being fully present in the moment makes a world of difference. Right? It's the worst when you're working and feeling like you should be with your family, or you're with your family and you're thinking about working. You're basically just half-assing all of it because your mind is never fully present in any one place.
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And for my US listeners, like I said, think back to this past week, while you were with your family for Thanksgiving. Were you fully there? Were you thinking about stress at work, or Black Friday sales or Christmas shopping or all the work that would be waiting for you when you returned? Were you fully present with your family? Were you all there at that table, or were you scrolling social media, looking at everyone else's plate? Just something for you to think about, not to criticize yourself over, but it's something worth being self-aware of. It's a chance to grow and do better, and that's what I'm always striving to do, and always striving to help you do. So let's talk about this personal growth app. I'll have info on it in the show notes.
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So each morning I'm waking up with this new audio clip that ranges in topics but has the common goal of shifting my energy and helping me live a happier and more productive day. So I started incorporating this into my morning routine on Friday, november 10th, and, as life would have it, that following week was that week of curve balls. I have no doubt that I handled that as well as I did, with the help of that morning audio clip that we call Daily Fire. The Daily Fire for that Friday at the close of that crazy week was right on point with the message that I felt called to share with you today. So he asked us did you enjoy this week? Did you feel alive in the midst of all the chaos? Did you make intentional choices that brought you joy? Did you make intentional choices that brought you joy? That that is exactly what I had to do with every challenge that came my way that week.
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So my day is mapped out right. I know what I'm doing every hour of the day. I'm a sucker for some time blocking, and I'm feeling in control. And then, bam, mom, can you come to my American education week today. That's just an example. Initial response, reaction no, I'm swamped, but deep breath. Okay, wait a minute, let me actually look at if I can make this happen. Does what I was going to do in that block of time actually need to be done right now? Can it be moved? What's important to me, and this thought process, is just about remaining flexible.
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A lot of the frustration that we feel from life's curve balls is that, because we weren't expecting them, we immediately jump into defense mode. Right, we're busy, we're trying to do all and be all for everybody, especially parents out there with young ones. It's a stressful moment when something is asked of you last minute, it's just, it becomes one more thing, even if it is important to you. All, you see, is the stress of the change in that moment. But defense mode it doesn't shine a good light on any of us, right? And a lot of times it's not even necessary. You don't hand over the wheel when you're driving just because you've come across a detour, right, you don't say that's it, I'm done, I can't drive anymore on this trip. No, you pull over and you figure out the best route of action, considering the roadblock. And in the past.
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In moments when I haven't handled challenges so well, I wind up just frustrated. And in that same scenario, for example over the American Education Week, I've said no, I can't go to your school. Why didn't you tell me sooner? And then I remain in the work that I had scheduled and the whole time I'm frustrated that I can't be at the school or I'm feeling guilty that I'm not there with them, because that is what actually matters to me. But I lost sight of it in the moment, right. And I realize after the fact, after I'm out of that heightened initial state of stress now I'm in two places that once mentally and the work I'm going to get done isn't my best, and I've missed out on the experience with my child too. What good was that right? So this was just an example.
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There are times when maybe what you had scheduled isn't adjustable. I used to do a ton of interviews a day when I was director of an HR department. There were times when things would pop up like that at my kids' school and I'm like I'm sorry, I've got 10 interviews scheduled for today. I can't right. And something like that happened to me that week as well. I couldn't attend my youngest son's honors ceremony that I didn't find out about until like two days before, by the way, because my other son had his annual doctor's checkup that I scheduled a year ago, right. So I had to release being at my youngest son's honor ceremony. I didn't let it weigh on me, I didn't feel guilty about not being there. I let my youngest son know why I couldn't be there in advance, told him we would do something special that night to celebrate his good grades. And I was just present with my oldest son at the doctor's visit and you know, we all know how hard it is to feel connected to a 13-year-old these days, even if it was just for his doctor's visit. I totally soaked up that one-on-one time with him and I felt like it was right where I needed to be.
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I chose to be present in that moment. Every curveball, every challenge presented a choice. I present you a choice. We can remain flexible, we can remain open. I haven't always done that. That's why I'm particularly proud of myself for that week and felt it was something that I could inspire some of you to try this week.
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As much as it is a choice to get into frustrated defense mode, it's a choice to remain open, remain flexible and consider the options. When you're frustrated, you really wouldn't see any other option, even if it was staring you right in the face, because you're just seeing red. But if you can catch yourself in that and take a breath, consider the different ways in which you can look at the situation, it'll allow you to be more present in whatever the outcome is. Whatever you decide is the best course of action or best course correction. Does that make sense? I hope so. I hope that you guys are picking up what I'm putting down, because it made a huge difference in my week that week.
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So, like I said, the growth app that I've incorporated into my morning routine definitely played a part in my ability to take a breath, because that might be what you're wondering, like, okay, erica, that sounds all fine and dandy, but how do I catch myself in the moment and dumb eyes off to take a breath and remember this episode? So I'm going to share with you how I did that. Let's talk about how you can start your day in a way that will help you approach curveballs in the same way, besides, of course, joining me on this app, which is amazing, because without a morning routine, if you're not grabbing the wheel at the start of your day and you're waking up at the mercy of everyone else. You are in defense mode from the moment your feet hit the floor in the morning. So, of course, any little curveball or challenge you face that day is likely going to throw you way off. But when you start your day with intention at the wheel, with a positive approach, you're more likely to maintain control of the wheel in the face of a challenge. That makes sense, right? It's easier to maintain control than to try to regain control or gain control for the first time.
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So take control of your attention first thing in the morning. We have to do this with intention, because there's high paid engineers out there working to steal our attention from the moment we open our eyes, right? Oh, I wonder what I've missed on Instagram or Facebook or in the news, and boom, we are hit with everyone else's life and everyone else's desire to pull us in this direction and that direction. But you have the power to take control of your attention in the morning in place of that. This is when I push play on that daily fire audio clip. Maybe for you it's a motivational YouTube video or another podcast, but put some positivity between your ears. Choose where your attention goes. I'm listening to that daily fire motivational clip from the moment that I start brushing my teeth in the morning. Create a morning pattern that gets you in a great mindset before anything else can influence it in any other direction. Get control of the wheel.
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One of my favorite takeaways from the app was from a clarity challenge that I signed up for right. So within the app, we can sign up for various challenges to hit on some areas that we may be struggling in and with the chaos of my life since July, I've really felt a loss in clarity and purpose and direction, and when I saw the five day clarity challenge, I was all in and in the inspirational video on day five I heard this quote focus on the day so that you don't lose the week, and I found that so incredibly powerful. Prior to all this chaos in my life, I'm someone who could think far into the future and focus on that long term goal and let that drive me and my today. But now I'm in a season where focusing just on today is what I need to do to take action. So I had to write down that quote when I heard it focus on the day so that you don't lose the week.
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What can you do today to help you reach your goals? Relationship goals Do you want your marriage to be better? Do you want to be closer to your spouse? What can you do today to feel that? Career goals Do you want to change career paths or companies? What can you do today to get you a little closer to that? House goals Do you want to have your house totally decorated for Christmas by the end of this week? I know some of y'all go all out. What can you do today to get you there Just today? It keeps you present when you think about it like that. It keeps you in today and then you just do that again tomorrow.
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And what does this all have to do with a week of curveballs? Well, when you start your day with positivity and you take control of your attention, listen to something that helps you shift your energy into something positive and productive, set clear intentions for the day in front of you, focus on the day so you don't lose the week, when you do these things, your response to those curveballs is totally different than if you woke up playing defense, responding to everything and everyone else, letting someone else choose your mood, focus and energy for that day. We've just come out of a busy week for many of us celebrating Thanksgiving here in the US, and I know for a lot of people that means travel and lots of cooking and hitting different houses. Perhaps you're now playing catch up from some extra time off, or maybe you're just already feeling the Christmas rush or just struggling to get back into routine, back to your goals, and that's why I thought that this topic was perfect for right now. I challenge you to embrace every to do on your list this week. Be in the moment with each task. It makes even the unenjoyable tasks a little more bearable.
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I had a tough leg day workout on tap this morning and a lot that I needed to get done today. I wasn't that excited to push play, but once I did, my focus was okay, I'm here, I'm present in this workout, how can I make this enjoyable? And I got really present in the words from the trainer. I could really hear her because I wasn't thinking about anything else. My mind wasn't on the to do, I'm here, I'm doing this Right. So I actually heard her words and I felt the music and I found myself laughing and dancing in this tough leg day and flying right through that challenge. Because I was there, I was all in and I wasn't thinking about everything else I had to do. And if I had instead been in five different places at once and somehow getting that leg day done, that 30 minutes would have felt like three hours.
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Put your best self into one thing at a time. Focus on what you can do each day to make it a success to you. So let's redefine success as feeling accomplished in each thing that we did show up for. It doesn't mean that you necessarily showed up for everything this week. Here's your challenge. One, take control of your attention in the morning. Take it back from anything that you've been giving it to you that isn't serving you, that isn't helping you gain control of the wheel, first thing. And two, get present in whatever you do, whether you're with your family, friends or enjoying some alone time. Be there fully. Don't let your mind wander to work or what you have to do next. Catch yourself in that moment. It's going to happen because we're so used to it. But work to catch yourself. Just be where you are, remind yourself, be where you are and create joy, even in the things you aren't necessarily looking forward to Thank you for joining me on this episode of Elevate with Erica.
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Remember life is a series of moments and the more present you are, the richer your life becomes. Embrace the challenges, celebrate the victories and always strive to be your best self. If you could take some time, if you connected with this episode or know someone else who may need to hear these words, please go share it on your social media. Send it to a friend, tell her to tune in today Until next episode, guys, eh, let's take a quick break for a word from our sponsor. Are you ready to make a change? Are you ready to feel alive and excited again? The time is now to improve your life and achieve consistency through the help of the world's greatest teachers, digital tools and a supportive community.
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