Do You Align Mind, Body, and Spirit? (Special Guest: Rita Ernst)

In this episode, Greg welcomes business transformation dynamo, Rita Erntz, to the show for an explosive conversation about her transformation into the Show Up Posivite Movement leader she is.  With valuable insights and takeaways on both a personal and professional level, Rita and Greg break down the importance, and application, of spritual, mental, and physical integrity.  And you won't want to miss it as Rita lays out her blueprint for business transformation, utilizing a professional application of mind, body, and sprit alignment!

Transcript

 Rita Ernst Appearance on Manifest the Big Stuff

Rita Ernst Appearance on Manifest the Big Stuff

[00:00:00]

Greg Kuhn: Hello and welcome to Manifest the Big Stuff. I am Greg Kuhn. Sometimes people call me the Law of Attraction Science Guy. I'm a podcaster. I'm sure that was hard to guess. I'm also a writer, a speaker, a teacher. I help people learn to manifest the big stuff, hence the name of this vodcast and podcast.

Think of Manifest the Big Stuff as a tuneup for manifestors who, like me, want to create their realities more intentionally and engage with them more intentionally. So that our lives can be as joyous, as successful, and as fulfilled as possible in each moment. [00:01:00] With each episode, I'm gonna share timely ideas, tips, and techniques, all with the intent to help you become a more powerful and intentional architect of your reality.

And one of my favorite things to do on Manifest the Big Stuff is share amazing people with you. Guess what? I get to do that today, so I'm extra excited. I get to introduce you today to 

Rita Ernst. 

Rita is the founder and president of Ignite Your Extraordinary, where she helps businesses and their people build workplaces where happiness and productivity converge.

And in the process start creating positive, committed, high performing teams, the lifeblood of every workplace. She works with business owners trying to figure out [00:02:00] when things got so hard and how to make it better. Rita gets them back to that sweet spot where productivity and happiness converge. And in fact, Rita's mission at Ignite your Extraordinary is to, and I'm gonna quote here, ignite positivity at work to improve performance, culture, and personal wellbeing.

Rita, can we start by you letting us know how can someone get in contact with you? Where can they find you and how can they start engaging with you? 

Rita Ernst: Well, Greg, thank you for inviting me to Manifest the Big Stuff. I feel very honored to be with you today and to get an opportunity to meet your audience of listeners that follow you.

Fastest, easiest way to connect with me is my website: [00:03:00] Igniteextraordinary.com. That's gonna have the links for all my socials. It has my book information, my speaking information, my consulting work. So it's kind of the one stop shop for everything that I am doing. So that's the place that I would send you.

However, I will say that if you're a LinkedIn person, feel free to come connect with me. That's probably my powerhouse social, so you're gonna see me more active there and in more conversation directly with people on that platform. And then I do broadcast weekly. You can catch that on YouTube as well as LinkedIn if you're not a LinkedIn person.

Greg Kuhn: Fantastic. Fantastic. Thank you, Rita. Before we get into the heart of our conversation, I wanna share a bit more about Rita. Rita is an expert in organizational design and behavior, so she can help you identify the issues [00:04:00] contributing to your organizational unhappiness or uneasiness. She can help custom design engagement sessions that realign mission, values, and commitment.

She also coaches leaders and teams to communicate and collaborate effectively. And she can help pinpoint essential changes to improve operational efficiency and reduce stress in the process. She cultivates people-first cultures that deliver extraordinary results. Her clients tell me that Rita sparks passion, energy, and commitment in them and in their teams.

They learn how to sustainably boost positivity and fulfillment at work that will continue to improve over the life of their business. Rita, is that an adequate description of your [00:05:00] professional focus? 

Rita Ernst: I sure hope so, cuz that's kind of exciting to me. So... 

Greg Kuhn: You like the sound of that? I do too. 

Rita Ernst: Yeah. The easiest way to say it, Greg, is we spend a third of our waking lives at work.

So much of our identity is tied up in who we are at work that we actually grieve when we eventually retire and step away, everybody goes through this grieving process of letting go. And especially if you're a business owner. Business owners grieve heavily when they walk away from their businesses.

And it's because if you have the privilege of finding work that is your passion that you love, that is not surprising. Right? But given that all of that is so true, it's so important that work be this place that is pouring into our cups, not a place that is poking holes in the bottom and letting all of that goodness [00:06:00] drain out. Right? 

And so that's just my mission. My mission is how do we keep people in that place where their cup is full and they're able to contribute to their communities, to their families, to the world in a better way because they're operating from that place of fullness and not depletion?

Greg Kuhn: Wow. Am I correct in saying that you have found that in your professional life? You're following your passion, correct? 

Rita Ernst: Yes. Yes. and I, that's not to say I don't have my ups and downs and I don't have most moments when I'm repairing the bottom of my cup because somebody's poked some holes in it.

 We all have those moments, but I do believe, and this is part of that manifesting thing, I do believe that we can create the world that we want. That we have a lot of power to either deliberately make it happen or greatly influence making things happen. [00:07:00] And so I, that's how I choose to live my life.

I choose to live my life from that place of believing in my own power.

Greg Kuhn: And you believe in yourself and what you're doing. That means a lot too.

Rita, regarding that manifesting thing that you mentioned, you and I have a lot in common. So I imagine we have quite a bit to discuss. 

Can you talk to us a little bit about how you manifest your life, meaning your business, what you do, how you spend your time, how you keep it focused on your passion, and how you keep your activities focused on that passion as well?

Rita Ernst: I think that what's so interesting about where we are in this moment is I describe the [00:08:00] pandemic, that 2020 moment, Greg of, I have this game plan for my business. I was on the on-ramp to the expressway of my business, of where I wanted to go, what I was gonna be doing.

And then the pandemic hit and everything changed. And it was that moment of frustration of this was gonna be the year. I just had this beautiful thing lined up and I knew where I was going. And today where I am in my business has nothing to do with what that was back then.

Greg Kuhn: Interesting. 

Rita Ernst: And so I think that what's so important about that and in manifesting is it's not about having the perfect vision that, becomes the set of blinders that you charge forward to. But for me, the trick and the manifesting of my business has been my ability to stay open and to see the new doorways and windows that pop [00:09:00] and being willing to walk through. And being willing to let go of something in order to pursue something else that then can be an even bigger and better thing.

So in some ways I feel like I'm constantly shedding. Like I'm shedding my exo-skeleton and I'm emerging again. I'm not the chrysalis butterfly thing, right? But in order for me to grow I gotta go find a bigger shell. 

 Which means I am changing. And that's not everybody's journey. But I do think that I manifest a lot of what's happening in my business because of the openness and that willingness to just change. Change my vision and keep reimagining what else could be, what else could be, what else could be. 

Greg Kuhn: So am I correct to say that as you are living [00:10:00] your moments, you are evaluating things formatively rather than summatively?

 You're not making the final call. You're not saying, oh, this is what this means. You're remaining open, you have a growth mindset. 

Rita Ernst: Yes. And I think that... I can't remember, was it Seth Goden? Somebody wrote, which of those sage authors that I love wrote? What got you here will get you there? So something like, that's a title of a book.

 But there's something to that, you know, like 

Greg Kuhn: Mm-hmm. 

Rita Ernst: we all have a script for our success and a lot of times we're not really self-aware but we're just playing out that script. And there can come a point where that script is no longer serving you or it is limiting you in some way.

And I think one of the most pivotal things about my journey personally has been learning that and really coming [00:11:00] to realize where my hidden script for success has formed into self-limiting beliefs and then being able to bust beyond those. 

Greg Kuhn: So have you found Rita, have you found in your business, Ignite the Extraordinary, that some of your initial ideas were actually selling yourself short?

Rita Ernst: I think they served me in a season. I don't really think about it that way. I think they served me in a season. What is so in incredibly interesting, Greg, is the work that I'm doing today is more like the work that I was doing when I fell into my business back in 2008. I was working before 2008 was when I really said, okay, I'm gonna make it a business.

So in like 2004, 2005, I was just on [00:12:00] hiatus, taking a little break in my corporate life. And then I was gonna go back into the corporate thing is what I thought. And work was just sort of falling into my lap and I was doing it. And then, you know, you have a plan and God laughs at you, right?

And you end up doing something completely different. But what I was really, what people were coming to me for and the kind of work that I was doing, I found myself coming full circle and back into that work again. But I'm a very different person in that work today because of the journey that I have been on.

So I have no regrets about any of the choices that I made along the way. They served me at that time and at that place. Then I'm back to where I am right now and I'm doing the work that I'm doing today. And it's serving me and it's serving a group of people that I wanna serve better than if I would've held on to the place I was just two years ago.

Greg Kuhn: Interesting. I like [00:13:00] the way that you framed that and I agree wholeheartedly. Oftentimes I find myself thinking, do I wanna make a decision right now? Or do I want to make a placeholder decision and come at it from an even higher or more aligned perspective, which I expect to be at a little bit later.

And it's funny, what I found through the years is that all these decisions are placeholder decisions. They're all based on the best information we have, and the best willingness we have, and the best efforts we have, and the best awareness we have. And as long as I'm putting my best effort into it and learning from the feedback, there's no wasted effort is there?

Rita Ernst: No, there isn't. You know, for me, it's almost not even a cerebral thing. It's a more intuitive finding the energy and following the energy. And it's almost like when you sit [00:14:00] down and they're doing the emergency thing at the plane and they say in the event of an emergency these lights will light up and you follow the path.

 I just feel that pull energy, there's just a lighted path that I follow. But what's so interesting about that is when everything came to a standstill in 2020, all of a sudden there was no energy to follow. It was a really weird place to be in that moment.

 And so I was kind of working through and reconciling that. And then I got to talking with Coral, who I think she's been a guest on the show as well. She and I are office mates and she had this idea of like, I wanna do something for the small business community. And what if we started doing stories. And long before everybody else jumped on the word, we had this thing called the Pivot Project. 

And it was finding businesses that were finding a path forward in the chaos of that time and highlighting those stories. And we went and in, we interviewed, did a [00:15:00] lot of Zoom interviews with people. And then she would go onsite and mask up and do the pictorial photography that would really tell the story visually.

And I wrote the story and nobody was paying us to do that, but we had time and it was a way that we could inspire and do something meaningful. And I loved that time. I loved that project. And I had been writing a blog for a long time, but I probably would've never written my book if I hadn't done that project. All the writing that I did and telling those business stories.

And it's just another example of how the energy showed up. And I just said yes and followed the energy even though it wasn't really making any money for me. It just felt good to do. It felt like the right thing to do. I just followed the energy and then the next thing comes from the blooms from what gets created in that moment.

Greg Kuhn: Wow. Talk about a practical, real world example of taking advantage of the opportunity that's [00:16:00] presented to you. You focused more on the opportunity than the packaging because, certainly, we all have strong memories, I'm sure, of what that time, that pandemic quarantine time, was like. And I really admire you stepping into the breach, if you will, without a blueprint to follow.

You followed your intuition, you followed the energy, you followed your heart. I want to ask you, Rita, do you have any particular practices that you do on a regular or semi-regular basis to best prepare yourself or position yourself to be open to opportunity? 

Rita Ernst: Oh, that's a really good question. I To some extent, the answer is really no.

Like, I know people that go through mindfulness training or they spend time with a yoga. I've not done those kinds of things although I'm aware of all of those things. I don't even have what most people would consider a meditation practice.

But, you [00:17:00] know what I do, I do have ritual in my day. I have preserved time at the start of my day, and in the middle of my day, that is my refresh and reset time. I get out in nature, I move my body. 

 And if I have one of those big rocks that's kind of sitting heavy with me, that's a time when I can really take it out and do the introspection and really look at it and think about it. 

And I have made a decision not to let my critical voice have dominance in my head. And, so, when that voice is there, I am really good at recognizing it and then making sure that I am coming back into my solid cognitive processing and just really thinking about things and practicing the stuff that I teach.

So, you know, Peter Block is one of my [00:18:00] all-time favorite authors and consultants. He was a mentor for me at one point in my career. And he asks this really powerful question in one of his processes, which is: how do I contribute to the issue? And that's probably the thing that has gotten me the furthest on the energy and the yes thing, as a practice, is getting out of any kind of blame conversation or woulda, coulda, shoulda conversation. 

 To manifest, you have to recognize all areas of energy, including how you are detracting from your own energy, right? How you are contributing to the things that are pulling away?

As I'm talking out loud, I think that is probably the one practice that is the most meaningful, that is probably catapulted me the furthest, is really recognizing that whatever's happening in my life,[00:19:00] I am not just a boat on a tide. 

Greg Kuhn: No doubt. I love that you mentioned blame and on a recent vodcast I spoke about how, for me, blaming is a red light indicator, typically, that I have some incapable beliefs, maybe also some inadequate ways of engaging with reality, going on.

And what I mentioned is that identifying fault... I'm not necessarily wrong in what I'm seeing and how I'm attributing fault. It's the explicit blaming that's the signal, right? That's where I seem to cross a line. And now I'm out of sync, if you will. 

 And, really, that's a great segue. There were a lot of things you said, we're gonna come back to some of them for sure - I made some notes. 

I definitely wanna segue [00:20:00] into, because you spoke about your personal practice. One of the things that I recall from the last conversation we had is your mentioning that spiritual, mental, and physical integrity are to the individual what the integrity of an organization's mission, people, and values are to the organization. I'd love to hear about that comparison. How you have seen that play out, how you advise people to draw strength, I would imagine sometimes going in both directions. But to start, how important is it for you to be in spiritual, mental, and physical integrity as you lead yourself and lead others during your day?[00:21:00]

Rita Ernst: Well, first of all, let me give attribution. When I wrote Show Up Positive, I really had that idea at the core of what I was writing, but I didn't have those words. And then after I finished the book, I got the recommendation to read The Way of Integrity by Martha Beck, which I highly recommend.

And this idea of integrity being this alignment of mind, body, and soul or spirit comes from Martha's book, the Way of Integrity. And, I thought, oh, that's what I was trying to say, but I really just didn't have the full language for. 

And, hey, Martha Beck, if you're listening, I have this passion project where we write a book together and we talk about this alignment of individual and this organizational idea of what the other side of that is.

And so I was walking, I was actually walking and thinking in one of these mind-centering moments that I [00:22:00] have early in the morning, about this idea of: so, that's kind of what I meant, so what does that mean for what I'm saying? And that's where I got to, well, mind, body, and spirit or soul.

So mind is mission. What's our strategic intention, right, in an organization? 

Body is the people that show up to do the work. 

Greg Kuhn: Mm-hmm. 

Rita Ernst: And soul or spirit are those values that create that alignment and guidance. 

And what's so powerful about this idea, what I was talking about in Show Up Positive, I explain the psychology. It, individually that also becomes collective psychology, that gets us stuck in this downward spiral of negativity that was happening for so many organizations.

Still happening in many organizations that are trying to reconcile our current reality from where we used to be. [00:23:00]

Greg Kuhn: Hmm. 

Rita Ernst: People don't always love change, right? And we've been thrust into change of which we get very little control. And there are enough people resisting getting sucked back into where we've been before, that everybody's gonna have to be forced into some level of reset. Which is what's creating discontent and resentment right now for many people. 

 But biologically we know that we are predesigned to fixate on negative things in our life. We fixate on if somebody harms us in some way, whether that is emotional harm or physical harm.

You remember, think about the things you remember from your childhood. And I bet you remember as many negative things that happened to you, times that you've felt really injured or shamed or something, as you do positive things that happened. And many people remember more. They remember more of the negative things that happened.

 You remember when you got spanked by your parents, right? You remember when [00:24:00] you got shamed in front of everybody at school for something that happened that you felt a lot of shame about or whatever. Those things, because our minds are designed to see those just like a tiger chasing us through the woods: It's a threat! It's a threat! 

And so we fixate on it and we study it. And how do we make sure that we recognize that threat the next time and we avoid it sooner. And so it's all into the biology of survivalness, right? That causes us to fixate on things that are negative because we equate those to life-threatening events.

 As evolved as we are biologically, our body experiences that in the same way. And so I explain all of that in the book as a way for people to have a path of forgiveness. Stop looking for who to blame. It kind of sort of doesn't matter anymore. And we're all contributing to the problem.

 And getting angry, more angry, about it, [00:25:00] where not being satisfied until you can point at somebody and feel like you get justice, is a fool's errand at this because the person you're gonna be pointed at, eventually, is you in the mirror because your brain is lying to you. You're fighting biology.

And so that was the idea. I wanted people to just let go of that because if we can let go of that, then we can create a space for something better to come in. And so what's the better that comes in? The better that comes in is then finding ways that we can start to be the person in the world we want to be. And the person that we want others to be around us.

So the old teaching methodology, right, is see one, do one, teach one, right? So it's that same idea. How do you show people what it is, how do you invite them in to participate with you, and how do you then make them the apostle or the prophet that spreads it to the next person?

Like how do we make [00:26:00] positivity our path forward instead of ruminating on all of our discontent? And that's the invitation. That's what the Show Up Positive Movement is about. 

And it's so vital because of what Martha taught, right? So in business, people need to know, there's a mission, something that's meaningful to them, right?

They need to know that there's values that they can align to, that they're spiritually aligned with. That they're not gonna be in conflict with what's important to them. 

 If a company requires you to behave in a way that does not align with your personal values, like let's say 

 you go to work for a company that repossess? And you've then you've gotta show up at people's houses and give 'em notice and the car gets hauled away or whatever? If that is not in your value set, right, you're just not gonna be happy at that job, right?

If you're one of those people that are like, people deserve a second chance, or I don't wanna take away from somebody, I don't wanna kick somebody that's already [00:27:00] down, you're not gonna be good in the repossession world, right? That's not gonna be the right path for you. 

And so that values alignment is so important. And when those things aren't present, what happens is we start to see discontent and negativity building. And that sets an organization on this pathway that completely derails the culture and creates a lower-performing organization. And what Martha was saying in her book, on The Way of Integrity, is when we don't have mind, body, spirit alignment, what happens is we manifest really unhealthy things.

So she gave examples of where she had fibromyalgia, like really severe medical conditions. But when she got into spiritual integrity, when she had mind, body, spirit alignment, all of that medical [00:28:00] stuff just disappeared because it was manifested from all of that negative energy in her body. 

And the same thing happens in businesses. All that negative energy just has to go somewhere. And so it just keeps replicating throughout a business. And what we need to do is we need to reverse the cycle on that. We need reverse osmosis. We need to get more positive energy in there so that that negative energy isn't taking over.

And when we don't do that, then we see the wellbeing of not just the people in the organization, but the business performance suffer. Just as she gave the example of how her personal, medical, physical, and mental issues emerged, manifested out of this preponderance of negative energy in her life.

Greg Kuhn: Interesting. I'm not gonna ask you to sum up [00:29:00] the work of aligning that in a neat, snappy two minute explanation. I do want to ask you, though, when doing this work with organizations, is it equally important... Obviously buy-in is going to be important and participation is going to be important. And so how much of the responsibility falls on leaders versus the folks who are boots on the ground doing the work? Or is it equally shared? How does that get divvied up? 

Rita Ernst: It is maybe equally shared. But one of the big epiphanies for me about culture, work, and business that came out of the pandemic is: I used to be one of those people that thought culture was something that came from the top of the organization and trickled down. 

Greg Kuhn: Mm-hmm. 

Rita Ernst: And I've completely turned that on its [00:30:00] head. I no longer believe that to be true. Because what we saw happen, in this vast, enormous change that happened in the pandemic, is that it was quite simply the level of interaction the disintegration of that experience, worker to worker, that took down the culture.

It wasn't about decisions from the top necessarily. It was really about, I am so busy trying to order groceries, and take care of these things, and figure out who in my family can come take care of my kid because there's no more childcare that I like, leave me alone. I just need to go sit down and I don't have time to jump in and help you take care of that task like I used to.

Cuz I just need to take care of my business right now and I'm gonna go sit on my phone and take care of that because that's all consuming. And oh by the way, I'm mad at the world and because I'm mad at the world, because I'm mad that I [00:31:00] can't do these things that I used to do, then I just don't have a lot of patience.

So I get mad at everybody else around me faster. And I have so much anger I can't hold it in. So now I start bleeding it out at work in the way I treat other people. And so it just escalates very quickly. 

And we learned that the worker to worker, person to person experience is a much bigger determinant of culture than just the top.

So there is a role, eventually you're going to hit some limitations at the top of the organization, but the truth is it doesn't matter. Especially when people are four and five layers above you. It doesn't matter what they're doing. You can just get together with your coworkers that you spend time with every day. And you can just start with your little team and you can make that experience one that fills your cup every day, just being with those people.

And it makes it a lot easier to tolerate the [00:32:00] frustrations that come from people above you. It's not your job. You can't necessarily fix everything because just as we learned in social justice, there are systemic things that are bigger than any one thing. The systemic things are the responsibility of leaders. But systems are dependent on behaviors and behaviors start just person to person. 

Greg Kuhn: Yeah. And perhaps the larger the organization, or the more bureaucracy involved, that makes it all the more important that it starts with the individual, I would imagine. 

Rita Ernst: Yeah. I mean, I have worked in many large Fortune 200 companies. And at every one of those I used to talk about it as big C and little C. Big C is the culture of the top of the organization. And little C was at that team level. Because at every company that I worked at, there were groups [00:33:00] that nobody wanted to be a part of because they had a very toxic culture, right?

And, 

Greg Kuhn: Mm-hmm. 

Rita Ernst: yes, some of that had to do with the behaviors the leaders enabled in that organization. But you know what? It wasn't just the leader because it was all those other people in they're doing it too, right? We gave each other license to treat one another that way. And that's what made it a toxic culture because the leader could have been willing to tolerate that, but, if the team wasn't, and if they held one another accountable and said, that's not how we treat one another around here and this is how we wanna be, they could have shaped that differently. 

So, there were also teams that everybody wanted to join. I worked for some companies that did not have good reputation as a whole, but there were teams that were well sought out within that organization that people wanted to be a part of.

And it wasn't just the leader, it was the [00:34:00] culture of that particular business unit or that particular team that was highly functioning, highly effective, despite the dysfunction elsewhere in the organization. 

Greg Kuhn: Of the larger entity. The system within the system was high functioning.

Rita Ernst: Yes. Yes. 

Greg Kuhn: I know when I think about this kind of work, and certainly I've had my share of working in bureaucracies and large organizations, the first thing that comes to my mind is, well, doesn't everybody have to be on board for this to be effective? And I know one of the things we talked about last time, and you've certainly been mentioning it throughout our discussion, the opportunity that the individual has and the responsibility that the individual has.

At the end of the day, I know, our [00:35:00] listeners know, the only thing we're ever gonna be able to be completely in control of is our actions, our ideas, our attitudes, our focus and following through on those things. So do I hear you saying that whether it's my family or it's my workplace or any other, you know, community or organization that I'm bound to and choose to belong to, I always have agency and I can always make a difference because I can always be that which I would like the organization to espouse? 

Rita Ernst: Yes. Absolutely. You know, just picture in your mind, there's a cup with water in it and you're holding a dropper over the top of it, and you're gonna release one droplet of water into that cup.

And [00:36:00] when that droplet falls, right, there's gonna be a ripple out from that. So you can do one drop and the ripple effect, the number of people that it can touch, is amazing. And so, yes, yes, absolutely. 

 What I say in my literature is if you had a high performing, high functioning organization and you've gone through some kind of disruptive event that has knocked your culture off course, we can get you back on course within 90 days.

And in most cases, we're well on the way in the first 30. In the first meeting, you're gonna feel a substantial difference because we're tapping into remembering. And we're getting back to muscles that people know and understand. And we're just reactivating and reinvigorating those muscles again. [00:37:00] And so I can guarantee you're gonna see fast results. 

It's different if you have had a dumpster fire of an organization where people don't really know that and haven't experienced that. That's a different learning and it's gonna take longer for that to happen. But when people have a form of muscle memory about what it means to be part of a highly functioning team, all we gotta do is help them remember and reconnect. And do the healing work to repair the respect and relationship pieces that maybe have not received the level of attentiveness required that has gotten you to this place.

Greg Kuhn: Hmm. We've forgotten who we really are. 

Rita Ernst: Yeah. Or we've, yeah. I mean, it's... 

So I like really simple analogies. So very simple analogy.[00:38:00] You're training up for a marathon. You're in the best physical condition you've been in ever in your life. And you step on something in your house and trip and fall and break your leg.

Greg Kuhn: Hmm. Terrible. 

Rita Ernst: Terrible. Now you can't work 

Greg Kuhn: As a runner, yeah, that's horrible. 

Rita Ernst: Now you can't do the things you love. You can't work out the same way. You're commanded to have a certain amount of rest, elevate time. You're not gonna be running for probably nine months before you can even begin to get back to what you were doing before.

Greg Kuhn: Mm-hmm. 

Rita Ernst: You don't go out day one and pick up where you left off. It's not possible. 

Greg Kuhn: You meet yourself where you are, right? 

Rita Ernst: You meet yourself where you are but you know you can get yourself back there. You've been there before. 

Greg Kuhn: Mm-hmm. 

Rita Ernst: So you have a different kind of hope [00:39:00] and energy to getting back to that place. But you don't walk into it day one. You've got to reconnect and retrain yourself back to that place. 

Greg Kuhn: It's gonna feel a little too dishonest if I try to jump to the head of the line sometimes. That's not integrity, is it? Not always. 

Rita Ernst: Not always. Yeah. 

Greg Kuhn: That's interesting. 

Rita Ernst: But, you know, you also have to have grace for yourself. Part of that, and that was part of the Show Up Positive, what message I wanted in the first part of the book, in the manifesto, is, okay, so you fell off the wagon or you're not, you know, in times of, you know, you got Covid for God's sake. And you almost died and it's taking you a while to get back to the level of activity.

You lose energy quickly and you have grace for yourself. So it's okay. How can we have grace for one another when we are repairing and we are [00:40:00] healing? We don't get mad and say, oh, well see you can't do it. I give up, I'm just gonna walk away. I just quit. Right? You have to have a certain amount of willingness to go through and recognition that it's okay.

It's okay. And that is not failure in this moment. And that is not a reason to give up hope. That is meeting yourself where you are and having some level of willingness to accept the real limitations as you continue to recover. And every organization is gonna have to walk through that.

 We have these beautiful moments of, Oh my gosh! Wow! But then you get back into the day to day and it gets a little tough again. And you have to be willing to allow yourself to not be all the way to bright. And to take the steps required to get there.

Greg Kuhn: I really like what you're saying. It's [00:41:00] reminding me of something else that we talked about earlier. Which is positivity work versus positive affirmations, which are not always the same thing. And what's making me think about that is as you're explaining this, meeting myself where I am ,starting where I am honoring that, out of necessity, out of practice, out of best practice, that is positivity work. Even if where I really am isn't near where I want to be eventually.

You mentioned self-acceptance and, that self-awareness, it's okay for me to be where I am, isn't it? 

Rita Ernst: Yes. Yes. 100%! Preach, Greg, preach! There's so many other messages to the contrary of this that really befuddle people, I think. And God bless the [00:42:00] Catholics, but all that guilt, we don't, none of that is really benefiting us at all.

 Wherever you're starting from, the moment you can be honest about this is where I am and yet I know that's where I wanna be and I'm just gonna take the first step today, that is showing up positive for yourself. For your future self. There's that saying, do something today that your future self will thank you for. I mean that is at the core of what it means to show up positive for yourself. 

 It is just so important what you were saying and I love the way that you were saying it, Greg. It is a message that is so needed in society today. 

Greg Kuhn: No doubt. Rita, one of the things that I'll often say is that positive affirmations are great for getting me back on track. And they [00:43:00] really are. If I find myself off the track, for whatever reasons, you know, reminding myself of my normal, reliable capabilities and perspectives.

What goes along with that though, for me, is that it's really important for me to remember that to get back on track, the most important thing is I had to have been on that track. Otherwise I don't know what I'm flipping myself back up onto. 

But positivity work does not require me having been on that track. And to me that's a big differentiator, In my work, in my personal practices, I write and teach about, among other things, a process that I've developed to grow our incapable beliefs. 

And I'm actually in the middle of using that process right now. And I get excited [00:44:00] while I'm still at lower emotional perspectives. When I haven't worked my way up into the positive emotional perspectives on the scale that I use as I write and live my way and grow my beliefs. 

I get excited on the lower negative emotions because: A, I know I'm in a process that works. And B, I know I'm headed in the right direction. And C, it's okay to be right where I am even though it's not where I want to end up. 

And in fact, one of the things that I learn again and again in my life is: if I am not okay with being right where I am, sometimes I never get anywhere else.

Rita Ernst: Mm-hmm. 

Greg Kuhn: And that's a little discouraging, right? But positivity work, that incorporates self-acceptance. And I love that. And I hear you saying that. You couldn't go into a family, you couldn't go into a place of business, you couldn't go into a religious organization, any kind of, you know, [00:45:00] community and throw people right into the front row seats, could you? It wouldn't be sustainable, it wouldn't be authentic, it wouldn't address people's needs, would it? 

Rita Ernst: No. No. It would not. One of my favorite sayings is that people tolerate your conclusions, but they act on their own. And when you throw people in the front seats, you're preaching at them. We want them to carry themselves to the front seat because they have walked this journey of enlightenment that gets them there. And they really feel that in their core. 

Greg Kuhn: Mm-hmm. 

Rita Ernst: And that it's a big difference in mindset. And so much of business where I spend my time is about trying to force people into the front row, which we know over and over and over again doesn't work sustainably for any [00:46:00] amount of time.

And yet we're so willing to try to meet that short term goal or objective by just forcing things versus allowing for the real work to happen in the time course that is required. 

Greg Kuhn: Hmm. I have been known to say, Rita, that the best way to be trusted is to be trustworthy. And it might sound kind of silly. However, what I mean there is that if I am trustworthy and I know I'm trustworthy because my intention and my state of being and the way that I live my life are aligned, that integrity that you talk about? One of the things that does for me is that I don't ever have to worry about whether people think I'm trustworthy or not. At least [00:47:00] not in terms of judging myself based on that.

 I might alter or amend my actions to better display my trustworthiness. But ultimately, if somebody is coming to me and saying, you're not trustworthy, you're not trustworthy, it's nice to not have to wonder, wait a minute, am I? 

 And of course, in situations where I do ask that question, because we can always become more trustworthy, right? We can always expand our own definition of what it is to be trustworthy. And we can examine how we have been giving ourselves the thumbs up and perhaps grow that. 

So being open-minded is good for sure. But I really love your basis of: Be that which you want to see. Because the outer world ends up always being a reflection of the inner world, doesn't [00:48:00] it?

Rita Ernst: Mm-hmm. 

Greg Kuhn: I,Rita, I glanced down at my cell phone. It seems like we've all been talking for 15 minutes. I have really gotten a lot out of your your words, also your energy during this call. I'm sure that our listeners and our viewers are receiving that information just as readily as I am.

 I wanna make sure that I ask you, this podcast/vodcast, whether you're watching on YouTube or listening on a streaming service, people listen to it who not only want to have more joy, more success, more fulfillment in many areas of their lives, but they also believe that more is possible.

Rita Ernst: Mm-hmm. 

Greg Kuhn: And I'd love to ask you, since you've [00:49:00] got our ear, what is your advice? If I'm coming to you and saying, Rita, can you please gimme some advice? I want to be a more intentional architect of my professional life and even my personal life as well. Because I'm assuming most, if not all of the principles that you teach in the workplace are certainly applicable outside of the workplace. You've mentioned that many times during this conversation. So could you please give us your best advice? 

Rita Ernst: So my best advice is to really start with the end in mind. Really start by visualizing who you are in that future. What does that look? Who are the people around you? What are you doing? What has meaning in your life? 

 Have some idea about where you're going and then just keep looking for the [00:50:00] next right thing. Follow the path of energy. Once you sort of know, then tune in and start noticing and looking for it. 

And you don't have to be the ultimate chess player. I say this in the book, you don't have to know 10 moves ahead. You can take that weight off of your shoulders if you are just willing to be open to what's the next right thing. And what's the next right thing. 

And know that when you take a step and it doesn't work out the way you want. When you have that moment of that didn't work. I'm failing at this right now, right? 

 Oprah Winfrey teaches - her words are fail up. Failure just means, okay, that didn't work. And it really is not cataclysmic unless you don't extract the learning from it. 

So as long as you extract the learning from what was this moment here to teach me and how do I carry that teaching [00:51:00] forward and use it to my benefit? Then it really just means that this moment didn't work out. 

But if you extract that learning, you're taking something valuable away. And you can turn it into this teachable moment for yourself. And that is gonna continue to give you that energy and confidence that you need to keep moving. So those are my three tips that I would leave to the group.

And the only other thing that I would say about it is in the book, the second half of the book is 50 words of inspiration. I call them Show Up Positive Sparks. They're intended to be practices that you start. They're working around how you invite more positivity into your life, into your experiences with other people.

And it is a journey, not a destination. So it's work that never ends. And take it slow. And you can pick [00:52:00] one thing and you can just, and people do this, right, I am going to invite more gratitude into my life. And you might just work on gratitude for a month. That is a beautiful and okay thing. So you can pick any place to start and you can spend as much time.

 We're doing a couple of things. One is we're building muscle, right? So that when we face hardship, we have strength to meet that hardship. And the other thing that we are doing is we're building this bank account so that when our relationships with other people get tried, they don't falter and fold under that either, right?

It's the rainy day fund. It carries you through those hard times in your relationships as well. And when we have built this set of experiences where people really feel comfortable and confident in their relationship with us, we [00:53:00] are much more forgiving of one another when those hard times hit.

But you have to get intentional about building those things. And the forgive yourself, I mean, many things have been disrupted by the pandemic, including relationships. And you might be in a rebuilding mode. And that is not because anybody is wrong, it's just because we got hit by so many things at one time that disrupted and drew from our bank accounts.

And so everybody is in a bit of a rebuilding phase and the only way that you are not helping yourself is if you're not rebuilding. 

Greg Kuhn: Hmm. I love that not only is your focus on the journey, presenting the best potential and possibility for us to manifest [00:54:00] and engage with reality in ways that are as desirable as we can enact, they're also building bridges to the past, to the future, in our relationships with others. 

They also create a curriculum for us, don't they? That is 100% individualized. If I process my feelings and learn, those things become breadcrumb trails that lead me back to incapable beliefs and inadequate ways of engaging with reality.

And as you said, and I love this, positivity work, part of positivity work is looking at those incapable beliefs in inadequate ways of engaging and saying, am I okay with this? Do I believe more is possible here? [00:55:00] And I don't know about you, when it comes to the big stuff, you know, this is called Manifest the Big Stuff, well, the big stuff, health, relationships, intimacy, love, fulfillment, joy, success, fitness, wealth, these things that are so integral to the human experience, that are so desirable, and they can be manifest through many different vehicles, experienced in many different ways. And I love what you said about you can focus on one thing. If I'm focusing on gratitude for a week or for a month, you know what's really cool about that?

 And I guess I'm asking you this as a question, even though I'm stating it in a sentence format. What's really cool is that those sorts of practices, they're a bit like the tide coming into the harbor, right? [00:56:00] All the boats rise when the tide comes in, not just the one you're on.

Rita Ernst: Yes, absolutely. The thing I can guarantee you is when you choose to share your positive energy with other people, you will get a bump in positivity yourself. You will not only move the needle for them, but your needle moves not to the deficit, but to the positive. When you share your positivity, you bonus up.

Greg Kuhn: You know what, Rita, I'll give you a real world example of that. My father trained his dog to become a therapy dog. And he learned that when a human pets a therapy dog, it releases endorphins in the therapy dog and it also releases endorphins in the human. So I think [00:57:00] that our conversation today was a bit like petting a therapy dog. 

Rita Ernst: Yes, I would agree. 

Greg Kuhn: And I really want to thank you, Rita, for sharing your time with us today. We definitely made the most of it. We created something of value here and I can't think of anything more valuable than your time. So thank you for giving it to us and sharing it with us so that we could make that happen.

Rita Ernst: The one thing that will be more valuable to me than maybe my time is I would love to hear from your listeners. So please come into the comments, whether you're on the YouTube channel watching the vlog, or you are listening on your favorite podcast. Come talk to us. Tell us what's resonating, add to the conversation, whatever you have to share. That makes this even more reciprocating of [00:58:00] energy when we can bring more voice into it. So that would be amazing to have that participation. 

Greg Kuhn: I agree, Rita. Thank you for highlighting that. I love that kind of feedback. And I also love how willing you've been to delve into your inner world, what makes you tick. 

 I wanna say before we go, to everybody listening, please make sure that you join my Facebook manifesting group today so that, for example, you don't ever miss a future episode of Manifest the Big Stuff. 

 Another benefit of being a part of that group is that every month I share exclusive content with that group. I share about my manifesting life and my engagement with reality. And so you're gonna get stuff that's available nowhere else. 

I would love to have you join us. The link to that group [00:59:00] you can find in the description wherever you're watching or listening to this episode. So please come join us today. 

Rita, once again, thank you so much. And to those listening and watching, thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity to be of value to you. I never take that for granted. I always come with the intention to take advantage of that opportunity for you and for me. 

Rita helped me do that today, and I will say until we get to meet up again, and I hope that's real soon, I hope you decide to make the most of your time. And I will do likewise.

Thanks.