The Strong Mom Podcast

The Secret to Making It Look Easy: Abandoning Your Lone Wolf Mentality and Finding Your Tribe

• Lauren Regula | Strong Mom • Episode 4

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Ever felt like you're playing the game of life on hard mode, juggling parenthood, fitness, and personal aspirations without a lifeline? Lauren and Dave here, your Strong Mom family hosts, and we're peeling back the layers on why going solo isn't the golden ticket to success. Join us as we get real about the transformative power of community and connection, sharing stories that drive home the message that independence doesn't mean refusing support. 

This week, we're not just talking the talk; we're walking you through the art of building your tribe. We hit home the point that it's okay—no, it's crucial—to reach out and ask for help, spotlighting how this can lead to our kids learning about vulnerability and teamwork. From the moment a nanny walked into our lives, bringing a fresh perspective to our family dynamic, to that charity event that opened up new doors, we're showcasing the undeniable strength in numbers. And let's not forget how the right dinner companions can positively chisel your lifestyle and goals.

As we wrap up this heart-to-heart, we delve into the nitty-gritty of crafting a support network tailored for triumph. Whether it's shaking off the dissonance from a spouse's different lifestyle choices or syncing up with fellow moms who share your vision, we're all about empowering you to find your people. It's about carving out your path with the help of others who light the way to your goals, proving once and for all that while the lone wolf narrative is compelling, it's connection and collaboration that truly help us soar.

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Lauren:

I can do it. Don't want any help If you did it by yourself or you did it with others. The fact is you did it. We just cut off that opportunity that's gonna help you reach your goal.

Dave:

Maybe we don't have the same values right, it doesn't mean that we can't be great friends it allows for more opportunity.

Lauren:

Never stop and ask directions from someone who hasn't been where you're going. Ask the questions, ask for help. Welcome to the Strong Mom podcast. I'm Lauren, creator of the Strong Mom Method, three-time Olympian, three-time mom, two-time business owner, and we specialize in helping moms get their shit together. We help calm the chaos of life inside all around and really feel calm and present with families.

Dave:

All right, I'm the co-host, the sidekick. I'm Dave. I'm Lauren's husband. I'm gonna try not to talk as much as Lauren because she has all the good stuff to share. I'm gonna keep it moving, all right, and maybe provide some perspective, a little different perspective. So what are we gonna touch on today?

Lauren:

Well, we hear about moms wanting to reach goals and they know. Something I've heard more than anything almost is I know there's more out there, I just don't know what. I know I can achieve more, but I don't know what and I don't know how to get there. Like, how do I hit those big goals? So today we're gonna talk about the most important thing in your life if you want to achieve big goals, and the number one thing to avoid.

Dave:

What is it?

Lauren:

Community connection.

Dave:

Team Team Coming from some. You've been on some teams, I think.

Lauren:

Been on a lot of teams, been on a lot of teams and you know just like we tell our kids sports teaches you a lot and that's the one thing that is irreplaceable, coming from being on multiple teams.

Dave:

The flip side is what do we hear? So we've talked to thousands at this point of moms. What is possibly the number one issue. Kind of holding, it's like a parachute. It's dead weight on mom trying to be happy, be present, be more fit, all of it. What's that thing?

Lauren:

I should be able to do it by myself. I'm a lone wolf. I don't want to ask for help. I feel weak. If I ask for help, I shouldn't need it. Just that thought process that doing everything on their own is the only way to go about it. But I can promise it does not help.

Dave:

All right, so let's talk about quickly. I want to know where does that come from? Because again, we hear that from everybody and guys fall prey to it too. Right, it's independence. I think it's interesting that historically it takes a village right Everyone's probably heard that saying to raise a kid right, and now it's very much one person the mom thinks of it as she has to come up with all the answers across the spectrum of life for their child and for themselves, and so where do you think that mentality comes from?

Lauren:

Yeah, I know. I think this idea of wanting to do everything on our own I can do it, don't want any help it's a learned thought process. I think Because if you really think about it, going back, independence and doing things by yourself is really celebrated. When we're young and we learn how to tie our shoes, it's celebrated Like you can do it all by yourself. You know how many kids say me do it, you know only me, and that celebrated.

Lauren:

And I think along the way oh, it's just my opinion, but I think along the way we've thought that I either do it by myself or I do it with help and they're separate from each other. But growing up right, Do your shoelaces all by yourself. I can cook breakfast all by myself. You wanna be the smartest kid in the class and when I say the smartest kid in the class, no help from others attests that only you take and you as one single individual person are measured against everybody else. I think it's ingrained in us. It's this learned thought process, that I wanna be the best, I wanna be the fastest, I wanna be able to do it by myself, I wanna get the one position of the most coveted spot in this one company. It's just everything in this silo by myself.

Dave:

I think it's interesting. The school definitely drills that. Traditional schools are changing a little bit now Seem to be much more collaborative not always, but imagine, right, think back to school rows of desks. You sat by yourself, you take every test by yourself, right? Everything you're ranked in school, you're-.

Lauren:

Do you get in trouble? For if you look over to get help from others, it's crazy.

Dave:

They're anti-collaboration, and so I think that plays a huge part in it. Obviously, like at a certain age you spend more time in school than you do around your family, and so I think that becomes the kind of dominant thought pattern and some kids probably latch on to that idea of independence more than others. I would think birth order affects that. First born right, Because they're alone for the first part of their life. But it does seem to be poison that thought. Over time there's again. There's value and utility in being independent. We wanna encourage that, of course, but specifically for moms right now it can be your downfall.

Lauren:

Yeah, yeah, I really think the magic is where you learn independence and can also understand the importance of connection, community team asking for help. Because they are, they're better together, just like you know, anything we do is better together. We go further together.

Dave:

I think number one. So, just covering this kind of where it comes from, I think it's important to understand the origins and so, as long as everyone can understand that they're not broken for wanting to be independent and having this thought process Because I know you've had it, despite being on teams your whole life you've had this. The second part is that so it comes from this upbringing, of school or maybe of your early childhood. The next step in society is that it's disproportionately valued, this independence. Tell me about that.

Lauren:

Yeah, I think everybody can relate to this. We disproportionately value what we accomplish on our own. We think if we have help from other people it diminishes the accomplishment, and that couldn't be further from the truth. But again, I think it ties back to wanting to be that one bright light. A lot of times we would rather be the only bright light in the forest than amongst a forest of bright lights, and I think if we can understand that, it does not matter if you did it by yourself or you did it with others. The fact is you did it. That's the thing that's to be celebrated. But we would rather accomplish less and say, hey, we did it all by ourselves, because we disproportionately value that endeavor more than, oh well, I got help from other people.

Dave:

I want you to give me an example in your own life of that Cause I have one for myself. I know everyone's so interested. All the strong moms want to hear about how dad handled his biz. I want you to go first. I can think of one specifically.

Lauren:

For me or for you For you. Well, why don't you? Well, if you have an idea, then no tell me about yours. I'm trying to think right now.

Dave:

How about in Chicago? You had a run in with the neighbor.

Lauren:

Yes, oh, gosh Okay.

Dave:

Just for context, lorne and I talked about this four minutes ago before we started recording. Oh yeah, you're right, all right.

Lauren:

Okay, so I was pregnant with Grace, so first baby, I'm waddling around our little street it was a dead end, so a little called a sack and I'm, you know, a couple of days actually from my due date and or I was close to I was close but that way and my neighbor comes out to me and she was like oh my gosh, you know you're going to love this baby. It's going to be amazing. You know what it's like when you're a newly pregnant mom with your first and she just goes are you going to get help? Meaning I had no family in Chicago, I'm on my own Right. And she goes are you going to get help? And I was like, no, like I can totally do this all by myself. And she was. Her exact words to me were why? So you can put on your headstone that you did it all by yourself. And I remember looking at her and saying yeah, yeah, that's a yes, yes, because I can't, I do not need help from anybody. And it turns out that couldn't have been further from the truth.

Dave:

How did that work out for you?

Lauren:

Not well, not well. So again, just like a new mom, I'm thinking I'm supposed to what. Like a new mom? Are you laughing at me?

Dave:

Just in general. I'm just laughing at what an epic fail kind of that period was it? The reality is, it's like as a dad, just like watching, and it may be I don't know what it is, but I see this with so many moms and I've been there as a dad before. Like it may be, it takes one big failure to learn your lesson right. Like experiences the teacher in some of these cases. Like hopefully anyone listening to this that is struggling can learn from our mistakes rather than having to fail on your own, because I watched Lauren fail with it and it was kind of a disaster.

Lauren:

Well, you talked about the village. We used to think, you know, it took a village and I really, truly felt like I didn't need a village, like I was like no, and now I understand why you do need a village.

Dave:

Here's the thing. You could do it on your own, misrably, though, but you could do it like people choose misery. A lot of times, it's like misery and independence rather than collaboration and ease.

Lauren:

Yeah, I agree. Yeah, there's some, some sense of I feel weak if I asked for help. That was my thought process. I felt weak if I asked for help. I felt not feelings aren't facts and I know that now but I felt like I should be able to do everything, even though I had never experienced motherhood, I didn't have my family around to help, your family wasn't around to help I still felt like I should be able to do it all, everything, all by myself.

Dave:

I think just on that note, I think it's really interesting to think about like our raising our kids. Like living in Chicago, we had we had help from a nanny who was we got ended up getting help because I needed it.

Lauren:

Oh yeah.

Dave:

After the crash and burn and like we can't do this anymore and this is the best because, right, there's going to be people, there's always people. Wow, I'm not in that position to do that. You don't have to be. Everyone values things differently. We made some sacrifices to make this happen because we knew that we had to, but I will say, once we did it, there are benefits. Like there were immediate benefits in the help right. Like our nanny spoke Spanish. The kids started to pick up different things around Spanish. She had kids that were older. I would venture to say she was a better caregiver than we were, based on experience, like I have no problem saying that and I think even at the time, as soon as I kind of saw it, like wow, this is a great move for us. Like asking for help, and I think we learned asking for help and seeing it work, it gets easier and it starts to make sense Again. That's why we're sharing it now.

Lauren:

Yeah, it gets easier. It doesn't mean it's easy. I mean I still had plenty of moments in my life where I did not ask for help because I thought that that again I thought that I should be able to handle it. I thought that I should be able to figure it out. I didn't want to burden anybody else. So it gets easier. But it doesn't mean those natural instincts don't still surface of I don't want to appear weak, I don't want to feel weak.

Dave:

So it's easier, it's a comes to practice, talk to me about a little bit. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Lauren:

Yeah, that's true, you just said it. A lot of people would rather go through life and say I did it by myself, but do it miserably, but have that ability to say but I did it all by myself. I was that person, so I can totally relate. I really realized there's no reason to number one, cut myself off from opportunities for people to quote unquote help me in whatever capacity that is, whether it's physical help, mental help, any of it. But also, like you said, with Miss Maria in Chicago.

Lauren:

Miss Maria was our nanny. She spoke Spanish. Our kids started coming home from the zoo with her talking about Hidafa and all of these things that I'm like, oh my gosh, I think it's so cool. It opened our kids eyes up and I think it's really important to understand that there's a ripple effect when we do allow others to help us. It also shows our kids it's okay to ask for help. I don't ever want my kids to feel like I did, like I don't have the the ability or confidence or I feel that I should be able to do this on my own. There are so many people out there that are willing and love to support others, yet we just cut off that opportunity.

Dave:

Yeah, I think the reality is it's a way to show someone that you trust them right.

Lauren:

Yeah.

Dave:

To ask them for help, and when you put faith in a teammate right, it creates bonds and it deepens bonds that are already there, and so that's a benefit that people often don't think about. Yeah, are you ready for my example?

Lauren:

Yes.

Dave:

I'm waiting to talk. I don't ever get to talk about this. Think about when you left to play, so people don't know. Lauren left to play and this is a time when team I couldn't have survived without a team and it was the the perfect lesson. I think I probably actually could have survived, but Lauren left to play in 2020 and I, I play softball?

Dave:

Oh you do. Lauren left to play and train for the 2020 Olympics, which turned into the 2021 Olympics. She was gone for almost six months straight, I think, and so I had three kids. They were in school most of that time and so I had you know mom's know like I had dinner clean up in the morning, breakfast, make lunches, get them on the bus, make sure they're to all the practices, which at some days we had nine practices between three kids. That was our lesson in over scheduling. But I couldn't have done that time period without getting help. And we have Savannah here. Her name will probably come up multiple times, but she was my team at the time.

Dave:

I had I was the dad who was on all the text threads with all the moms about how to get the kids everywhere, and I let people help me, and maybe I learned from watching you fail over time be independent. I don't know why. Maybe it was the trading background where I had to rely on a teammate. I'm not sure where it came from, but I think I was probably more at ease asking for help than you. I guess sometimes it's.

Dave:

Do you want the results? Like we said, like, do you want the result or do you want to do it by yourself? And I just needed the result, like I needed the kids to be where they needed to be and have them fed and cared for and have me be sane. And so I had Savannah. I had the other parents, you know, around school and around the teams. I had my parents here that I asked for help with with rides and everything, and so it was a huge learning for me, like it was also a chance for me to, like we said, to kind of deep in relationships with those people and form some bonds that maybe weren't there.

Lauren:

Yeah, I do wanna share a thought process too. We do allow our families, or whoever. I'm using you as an example. When I left to train and it was you, the three kids I remember thinking this is a great opportunity, right you? Well, no, I'm just saying you get to be dad and have that special time with the kids, but it's the same thing with you asking your parents. They get to be grandma and grandpa and go, do the one-on-one and bring the kids to baseball. And I think sometimes we look at asking for help as always being a burden to the other person. But if we can flip it and understand, oh, actually I'm providing an amazing opportunity for not only grandparents, or you know, your Eric and Katrina helped us out. They would take the kids they always offered.

Lauren:

I think it's important for us to see what it's doing in a positive lens, as opposed to all the bad things that we think but we immediately go to the negative thoughts. So I just wanna share, because there's something called the reason why I'm bringing that up is there's something called the virtuous cycle of a feedback loop and you talked about. You actually relied on other parents to bring the kids places, bring them to practice, bring them home. Hey, I know our kids stayed the night plenty of times at some of our best friends here right down the street because you had to be multiple places and you weren't there in the morning. But the beauty of that is we're able to return the favor and it actually makes everything better.

Lauren:

And we think that the immediate thought process and asking for help and just wanting to do things by yourself because you don't wanna burden others is we only think this is a negative to them. But it's not. I love when people ask me hey, can you pick up? You know this person from basketball. Hey, I've got a meeting. I love doing it. I do Because I also know one day I'm gonna do it and it just creates this energy and it's a feedback loop of people helping people and wanting to help and the more you wanna help, the better things get.

Dave:

I kind of agree with you. I fully agree with you. I don't know that you live to that level of accepting help. Still, I think you have brain farts, or sometimes maybe it's just me. You don't wanna let your husband help. That's one of my, and this is what I would say. I'm guessing there are a lot of people around you, whoever's listening. There are people in your life that are dying to help you that you may not be giving an opportunity to Like. There's nothing more frustrating for me than watching you fumble around and not accept help Like it's like if you walk in the house with arms full of groceries and I'm standing there with my arms out and you trip past me, you won't hand anything off and then you drop everything all over the floor. I'm like yo, what are you doing right now?

Lauren:

Okay, this is why I love doing this podcast with you, because we actually get to talk about those real things. I know that that's kind of a thing and I know because we work with it's kind of a thing for you.

Lauren:

No, no, if you're listening to this, I promise I won't say the majority. There's a ton of you out there that can relate to not wanting to hear it from your husband. You hear the same thing or you get the same help from other people and it just hits a little bit different, and that's one of the beauties, right. We have our coaching program, where we have moms on a platform all communicating, and this is something that comes up. I don't know what it is, I don't know if it's. I wanna show you I can do it. I don't know if it's, I don't know what it is. But yeah, there are times. There are definitely still times that I try to do things by myself. I haven't recently slipped with groceries in my hand.

Dave:

It was a metaphor for life in general and I know where it comes from. Tell me, as you talk through it, this is my new theory you are trying to show me you can do everything by yourself, just like you tried to show your dad when you were little that you could do everything by yourself. And it's just an extension of that and it's having the male figure in your life that you don't wanna listen to.

Lauren:

Interesting.

Dave:

What do you think about that?

Lauren:

That's interesting.

Dave:

And this is a sidebar there's nothing in terms of frustration, and combine that with comedy, combined with not accepting help. There's and this is Lauren mentioned the virtuous cycle. This is the whatever. The opposite of that is. It's the obnoxious, frustrating cycle, watching Lauren and her dad stand there and refuse help back and forth I could got it no, no, no, I got it. No, no, I got it. I got it by myself. No, no, let me help you. No, no, no. And nothing gets done. It's incredible.

Lauren:

Yeah, love you dad, love you dad.

Dave:

It's probably that's like everything. It's the perfect storm. It's Canadian. It's Lauren's being independent Dad wanting to help. It's the worst.

Lauren:

I guess we'll sum that up with still trying to work on help from all different angles, but I think I know for a fact, though, when I do actually ask for help, you say thank you, I would love to help you. You've never not wanted to help you never. You really haven't ever. You've always wanted to help.

Dave:

There's times when I get frustrated. I'm like you know what? I hope you drop everything right now. I think that's natural right.

Lauren:

Yeah, just like in natural consequences. Then maybe you'll change, maybe I'll change.

Lauren:

That's the only way to change, is to just break everything, okay but as we move forward, can you at least say that I'm much better, like at the end of the day, one of the things we tell our parents, our moms that we work with, is things aren't gonna magically just I'm not gonna. You know, I work on myself. I work on asking for help. Things don't just magically we're all of a sudden. I perfectly always ask for it, but I'm working towards being better.

Dave:

You are. You're 1% better every day, as they say.

Lauren:

So, we.

Dave:

A lot of the talk is around team and asking for help, right this, all kind of bundles up with environment, right, your team essentially is your environment. Just to play it straight, right, when you're around, you're around the Olympic team. That's your environment. You're living, breathing, you're striving for the same goals and that's kind of what we're talking about. Give me talk to me about. Give me an example of environment playing in your favor. Like, and this is one thing you have, I'll totally lead you here, right.

Dave:

Dinner, like if you're looking to let's say you're looking to chill on your calories and lose weight, right, and so you go out to dinner and if there's two groups of people, you're with the right team and the wrong team. Let's be kind of binary about it. When you go out to dinner with kind of the wrong group of people and you order dessert and you order the food, what's the reaction from the table?

Lauren:

Yeah, and again, I'm gonna share this, probably on every episode. Environment is the invisible hand that shapes us. It influences our behavior, it influences how open we are in asking for help and asking for support. And we all have those people in our lives who are very comfortable with where they're at. They don't want to change, they love their I don't know say dinner as an example, so I'm just gonna speak in food terms Like they love their beer and wine and fried foods.

Lauren:

And sometimes we find ourselves and I know moms that I talk to find themselves in this dinner situation where they're trying to make healthy choices. However, it's like, oh, you know, it's like a negative reaction. Oh, so you're not drinking anymore. Or oh, great, now you're on a health kick, but it was attached to a negative, which then makes it a lot more challenging to make the right decision, because we're hardwired to be part of that community that we're in. We don't want to be the odd one out. So it makes it a lot easier to say, hey, I'll just have. Okay, fine, I'll just have one glass of wine, right.

Lauren:

So when you want to talk about different teams like there are teams when we say good or bad in this example, it's just to show there's the team that denies your quest for your goal. And then you have a team that kind of affirms you know what you want to do, supports you in to get there. So maybe you sit down and you go out with say you started running and you go out to dinner with your running friends. Maybe they're like, hey, yeah, totally get it. When I run I get headaches and I don't like to run with headaches in the morning. Totally understand and it's normal. That's gonna help you reach your goal. So we just have to kind of audit who we're hanging out with If we're really trying to achieve a goal that's really important to us and we have to ask ourselves is this dinner more important or is this goal more important?

Dave:

Well, that's the hard part right. A lot of the times that group like you mentioned you could have your ordering dessert Like there's nothing worse and I've been the person right. So I've spent a good amount of my early professional life drinking a lot. Not I don't want to be clear, I wasn't. I didn't have any real issues but definitely a good. I was a good drinker.

Lauren:

You enjoyed it.

Dave:

Yeah, I enjoyed it. I found the time slash made the time for it. I think, as I grew up and realized it, there was no benefit for me in life with drinking, with the amount of activity that we have with kids and, like you said, waking up, it's just. I don't enjoy it anymore. I don't enjoy the feeling and, again, I'm not imposed to a couple of drinks here and there, especially with good friends, like we were just in Austin.

Dave:

But there's nothing worse than being out with a group of people and the waiter waitress comes around and says what's everyone having a drink? They go around the table, everyone orders a drink, you don't, and then people look at you cross-eyed and basically talk shit to you and ask what's wrong, and alcohol is just an easy example. And so it's truly the people and now I'm around a group of people who, number one probably are at a place in life similar to me where they're not looking to drink all the time. Again, no judgment, but that's just who I'm around and what works for me, and the people that are having drinks understand me and know what I'm shooting for right and know that it's okay, and so I don't get looked at cross-eyed and it just makes it so much easier. It's not even a thought anymore.

Lauren:

That really brings it back to just knowing who you're, who you're surrounding yourself with. Cause we're talking about hey, you wanna reach goals. You really wanna ask for help. You wanna be around the right people. If we ask for help from someone who shoots us down, that's like you know you have that hesitation of asking again. So it again it's the people that you're around. If you're around people who wanna help you and you wanna help, that creates the virtuous cycle.

Dave:

Yes, you have to pick the right team.

Lauren:

Yeah, very important.

Dave:

So talk to me about some of the benefits overall benefits of being on the team, and this is when we say on the team, this is, you know, this is from your Canadian team to your helper on the house team. Like you have everyone kind of different teams in different places, right, like-.

Lauren:

Yeah, our holiday cards say from Team Regula, like we have our little team.

Dave:

Yeah, our family is a team. Our extended family is a little bit different team. The people that help us in the business are our team. Right, our company. Yeah, and so it's in different places. But talk to me about some of the just straight up benefits of being on the right team.

Lauren:

Yeah, when you surround yourself with the right people, opportunities, connections and opportunities multiply and there's a trust factor where you know, hey, someone's gonna help me, so then I can open up more brain space to do XYZ, whether it's driving more kids to more sports, or whether it's business, or whether it's hey, I have someone helping me, I'm gonna go for that extra long run because I'm training for a pretty hard you know running race or whatever that is. It allows for more opportunity and that's the one thing right. When we do things by ourselves, we get really excited to say, but I did it all by myself, but I was only able to accomplish a little sliver of that, very one little thing. So more connections, more opportunities, more support, more opportunities. Not even a question. Another one I think I wanna jump in.

Dave:

Oh yeah, I think that connection piece is like a hugely underrated Cause. When I hear you say that honestly, like the question is really like what are we doing here? Like why are we here? Why are we trying to do this thing? Like Do what thing? What do you mean Life in general? Like connection is everything.

Lauren:

Yeah.

Dave:

Right, and I think if you just wipe all the other things away, yes, you're gonna get further, you're gonna get more done, you're gonna be more successful, reach all your goals. But it's like being, it's like being you and I being together, right, like I think about the things I wanna do, like, let's say, our we wanna take a family trip to Africa. Right, Me going to Africa by myself ain't doing it for me. Like when I picture that as my goal, it's not motivating, like that's not something I have interest in, it's because I wanna share it. It's the connections with you, it's the connections with the kids, and so when you surround yourself with the right people, when you ask for help and you get on the right team, it enhances. It's a multiplier connection, right, you achieve the goal, but then you exponentially multiply the effect on your life with connection.

Lauren:

Yeah, there's a lot of studies that are done on what's the most important factor in longevity, and by vibrance, vitality, not just how long can you live, but the quality of life as you get older, and relationships and connection. That's the thing that comes up, which I think is really cool. But again, you have to allow people into your world. In order to have that connection. You have to get out of your turtle shell and extend your hands. I always talk to our kids.

Lauren:

It's funny, the lessons we try and teach our kids I have to retry and teach myself. I tell our kids all the time, because they play sports, I said listen, you wanna get your tentacles in as many of those groups as possible. Play on different teams, play for different coaches, get those tentacles out, because the more connections you have, the better. So, yes, connection, not even a question. Again, thinking of the things that we teach our kids, it's almost like we have to reteach ourselves because it's just as impactful and you never know where connections and opportunities are going to take you. And I'll give an example One day I was at a charity event and I was sitting next to a lady and just literally, by the opportunity and the connection with this lady. I had the opportunity to meet someone that I really admired and that would have never come if I didn't go to the charity event and start talking to people and sharing my story and listening to their story and connecting. So it's connection opportunities is huge. One of the other benefits is-.

Dave:

I was at that event. Right, you were at that event.

Lauren:

Yeah, actually you also were a big connector. What do they call those A connector? There's a book on it, maven. I'm a connector you can say it.

Dave:

Okay, so where are you going with this?

Lauren:

I wanna go to the next benefit.

Dave:

What do you think the next benefit is? This is a quiz.

Lauren:

Well, I was gonna say that when we open up our world and have other people help us and have other people part of our lives, it eliminates the tunnel vision and echo chamber of life. It offers new perspective. So, just like you were talking about Miss Maria, who was our nanny in Chicago, teaching the kids Spanish, she also taught me different ways to mother. I would never know she was from Guatemala. She was very, you know, she had a different upbringing, she had a different perspective. She had older kids. There were things she taught me that I would have left to my own device, I would have never known, ever. And I think what we do is we tend to gravitate towards people with a confirmation bias. We tend to go towards people who think the same way we do. It's very tunnel vision and I think life, when we can explore it through different perspectives, only gets more vibrant. It only gets better. So I think, eliminating the echo chamber and really kind of opening our eyes to new ways of thinking, it won't happen if we're by ourselves.

Dave:

I agree.

Lauren:

Oh, sorry, last thing, and it also opens our eyes to what's possible, right, we want to reach goals. If I see someone, if I talk to someone who did something crazy, I'll say, oh my, you know, this person climbed Mount Everest, like. That shows that something like that is possible, right. So I think it's.

Dave:

I think it's interesting when you talk about the Maria example, I think it's perfect. It makes you better. I just thought of you like learning. Let's make a softball example. Imagine you trying to figure out how to throw a change up as a little kid by yourself. Like, take, there's two lifelines, right. You, lauren at a 12 year old little girl, playing softball, learning her own change up. Or Lauren learning a change up from essentially an expert that you felt comfortable asking, right, where do those two places lead? Could you have figured your own change up out?

Lauren:

No, I really don't think so.

Dave:

Right. So where did you end up asking for help? It's just it's these things in sports we take for granted. Of course you listen to your coach, of course you ask for help from your teammates, but the challenge is can you take this into life and do these same things? Can you ask for help as a mother? Can you ask for help with your fitness? You know, with the internet you can figure all these things out. You might not figure them out to the level that you would have asking an expert or asking a teammate, but you can figure them out. You're certainly not going to do it as fast.

Lauren:

Yeah, it's a shortcut.

Dave:

It becomes yes, it becomes a shortcut. Asking for help takes you further and it can actually take you faster.

Lauren:

It takes you way faster and more enjoyable. When we are able to do things together, we go faster, we go further and we do it more enjoyably. Think about literally think about it as a journey. You're going on a running race. You can do it by yourself or you can do it with somebody. You're going to want to do it with somebody. I don't know why it's so challenging for us. Even though we know this, I'll speak for myself. Even though I know this. I know you're laughing at me, I know this and it's still like I have to really, really, I mean, I'm a lot better. I have to really amp myself up to say, like this is good, asking for help is good. Again, it's relearning it.

Dave:

We're going to walk upstairs and then Lauren's going to try and do something on her own that I could help with, and in this whole, we're just going to have to reset.

Lauren:

It's just good, we'll come back and do the episode.

Dave:

It's unbelievable, right? That's? Someone said you have to be reminded. Typically, you have to be reminded more than you have to be taught. Like you, if you're listening, you in it. I shouldn't ever say side note if you're listening, because clearly you're listening. If you're hearing this, people always say that, though, if you're listening, no, you are listening. Okay, back to business. You need to be reminded more than you need to be taught, right? You know these things in your gut and it feels right when you ask for help. It feels right when you're on the team, but we still forget, right?

Lauren:

Yeah.

Dave:

There's no judgment around it, but that's the work is reminding yourself and doing the things that you need to do to get back in the position to win and to be around the right people.

Lauren:

Can I share one when you said that one book that really I won't say changed, but I will say reminded us on the importance of asking for help? Is who, not how, right? That's what it's called.

Dave:

Yeah, who not how? Ben Hardy.

Lauren:

Who not how.

Dave:

And Dan Sullivan.

Lauren:

Yes, as I was thinking. Dan Sullivan who, not how, is a great book. Like Dave said, I do believe we could all learn how. I believe I'm have enough intelligence to learn how to do anything. It might take me 10 years and if I can learn that one, I would rather recruit the who. That's just, it's the help. It's it's who, not how. So if you're ever struggling, you're in a situation and you're like how am I going to accomplish this? I would challenge you to change that thought process to who can help me figure this out.

Dave:

All right. So I think we firmly established where, where this issue comes from, this lone wolf mentality. We've talked about what I guess not only where it comes from, but what reaffirms it as as a kid and growing up Right. Then we talked about kind of the benefits of asking for help and being on the right team and having the right environment. The question now is how do you find the right team?

Lauren:

That's a great question how do you find the right team? How do you find the team Like we're talking about goals today how you're going to get towards your goals. Well, well, number one I've said this quote before, but I will continue to say it as well Never stop and ask directions from someone who hasn't been where you're going. So when you think of, like, how to find the right team, you just don't want to pick somebody out of a hat and say I wonder if they can help me. You do want to look for people who have had a similar experience, who who have accomplished what you're trying to accomplish. Just like you talked about me learning a change up, I wasn't learning a change up from a basketball player. I was learning a change up from someone who knew how to throw a change up. They've they've taught someone before. So I think it's really important to look and ask yourself what goals in life do I have? Okay, where can I go find that person who has already done that? I think that's really important.

Lauren:

The other thing I want to share about that is a lot of times we get very sheepish or shy to ask for help because we're afraid of what the other person is going to think of us. Oh, maybe they were afraid of their judgment that we don't seem like we're good enough, or maybe they're going to, you know, have these negative thoughts on us because I don't know what I'm doing. Right Again, when we think of kids and sports, we tell our kids all the time your coach doesn't expect you to know everything. Ask the questions, ask for help. However, I've learned because I True story.

Lauren:

There have been people I get criticized, we all get criticized and we don't wanna open ourselves up to be criticized. There has never been a person in a position that is further along in their journey than me that has ever criticized me, ever. Any negativity or any criticism, anything that comes in a way of negative emotions from any people of those people have never they haven't surpassed where I'm at in my journey. So when you're looking for the who, if someone makes you feel bad, they're not your people. They haven't been where you wanna go. When you look at successful people, they want other people to be successful. They're not jealous, they're not trying to knock anyone down. They're looking for your successes. So it's really important to find people that look for your successes and wanna help.

Dave:

I like that. I think it's interesting. I see I'm sure we made this mistake. I guess that's the best way to talk about. It is from our experience. But business is a good example where we've maybe made some mistakes in the past. Having, like it's one thing to say, like look at the result that someone has, but how did they get to the result? What does their life look like? Like? Think deeper, right, it's like. Fitness is another easy example. Right, there are, you can find a fitness coach, like if you're a mom, and this is just the way from what we see and we see a lot of success and we see what's caused failures for a thousand plus women in the past.

Dave:

Right, and it all lines up essentially Like finding coaches or influencers. Whoever you follow, make sure that they have a lifestyle and a life that you want. Right, cause it's the perfect thing. Right, it's really easy. Everyone can lose weight essentially. But if you can't manage it around a family and a vacation and a husband and taking your kids places right. Don't follow somebody that doesn't manage that fitness inside the framework of life that you want. Right. If your coach is single, without kids, it's probably not a good fit for you. If you put a lot of value in your family and your relationships on top of your fitness, right, and so you need to think bigger and zoom out and look at the team and the people you surround yourself with. Does that make sense?

Lauren:

Yeah, no, totally, it has to be an alignment. That's gonna be like how do I find my team? There has to be alignment there.

Dave:

And I'll say certainly for us. We've had people that I'll speak for myself, that I've talked to, that have wanted to come into our program that weren't good fits. Like, if you don't have kids, you're not gonna be a good fit for us, and that's just, and it's again. It's just based on who we are, what we speak on and kind of our whole mentality. It's okay, right, and it doesn't mean that the person's a bad person if they're not the right fit for you. But just make sure that you're very intentional about where you look for your team.

Lauren:

I was thinking about how else to find your team. Sometimes you also have to try some teams on. Absolutely, you know like you don't just wanna. I don't know. It's like going out to dinner you might have a wonderful dinner with some group and maybe a better dinner with another. You never know.

Dave:

Yeah, it is. It's putting yourself out there and it's okay. The other, I think part of, like you said, part of finding the right team is knowing when the team or the people aren't a great fit, and I think sometimes that's releasing from maybe pass Right, cause that's one of the hardest things around your team.

Lauren:

From past. Can you explain on that?

Dave:

Yeah, like sometimes like the people you grew up with or the people that I grew up with for me aren't they don't over the last 30 years? Maybe we don't have the same values, right. It doesn't mean that we can't be great friends, but if I'm trying to accelerate towards what for me is fulfillment and life, right, it's easier for me to something like, I guess, not separate, but lean into a new group of friends, yeah, or new people. It's absolutely doesn't take away from the old friends.

Lauren:

Yeah.

Dave:

But in this specific case it's like our business life now, right, it's taken us in a little bit different direction, yeah, and so it's very. It's easier for me to kind of lean into open-minded entrepreneurs than something else.

Lauren:

Does that make sense? Yeah, and I think-. And people don't wanna talk about this.

Dave:

That's the other thing.

Lauren:

No, and I think what's really important for us to understand we're talking about how to find your team so you can go further in goals. What we have to understand, and I've understood, is you could have people around you, like there's gonna be people and it could be your own family members Not saying it is in our case, but it could be your own family members Like maybe you're listening to this and you have a spouse that's very resistant to eating healthy and wanting to be really active, and because you're two different people. So one question that I get all the time is like well, what do I do if my spouse isn't on board? And that's a huge part of your team. If you can't completely remove yourself from a team that kind of holds you back a little bit, you can always add more of those people that really do kind of fan your flames. So it's life right.

Lauren:

There's gonna be a little bit of a give and take. It's not like we're in charge of everybody else's actions and the way that they go about life. So all we can do is ask ourselves who can I surround myself with and it's gonna put me in a better position? Who's gonna support me, who's gonna encourage me. Who's gonna do all that without enabling me? We all have friends that mean well, but they enable. It's okay. I know that you had this goal and I know that you said you were feeling a little down and I know that was their 14th cookie and but it's okay, we'll get it tomorrow. Those friends mean well, but they might not be helping you towards your goal. Right, we have to be very careful with support versus enabling. But if we can't completely eliminate the team that we're trying to isolate ourselves from because again they could be family, we can always add Like, let's add as good of examples as we can, let's add those people that are really gonna help us go further.

Dave:

I think a big part of that is understanding as well. Like you don't have one team.

Lauren:

Yeah.

Dave:

And you don't have one group, like you might have a fitness group and you might have a family group and you might have-.

Lauren:

Might have a mother's club.

Dave:

A mother's club, right. So there's people, right. There are things for you. I'm sure that I can't relate to that. You talk to your friends about that you talked to Lisa about or someone else, right? And so I want everybody to understand it's not like you've got your five people in your life that are there for every aspect of your life, Cause, like we said earlier, there are experts and people that are really good at different things, and so that's when it makes sense to have people in different parts of your life.

Lauren:

Yeah, again, those are the tentacles that are reaching far and wide. We wanna have those tentacles as far as we possibly can. You love tentacles? I do love tentacles, all right, so really to wrap up and I can let you do the wrap up cause you're so good at that. Really to wrap up, though.

Lauren:

My wrap up is just beg for people to subscribe Just remember this lone wolf mentality as a mom, is it's really common? Common not necessarily, I don't think necessarily normal, because I think it does take a village and we know we know it takes a village, but we want to show up as, like I got this all by myself. The lone wolf mentality is very it's very common. It just doesn't help us. It doesn't help us in any aspect of our life. It doesn't help with reaching our goals. It doesn't help with creating connection, it doesn't help with creating opportunity. It literally limits us to the only little bit right Together. We go far alone. There's only so much we can do. So ask yourself instead of how am I gonna get through this? How? Ask yourself, who can help me? Those thoughts right, like better together, who, not how? Two huge, huge advantages, when there are goals out there that we're trying to hit.

Dave:

I think you nailed it. You said it all Dig it.

Lauren:

We're still working on it, but we're getting there Talk to me.

Dave:

Talk to me All the kind people, all the listeners.

Lauren:

All the kind people. Please like, subscribe, share, share with anyone you think this can help and if you wanna find us, you can find us. We have a Facebook group called Strong Mom Physical, mental and Emotional Mastery. If you're interested in our coaching program, if you need a who, let us know. There is a call. You can book a 10 minute clarity call. It's free, or, moms, it's short, free, just to get the ball rolling and Please like and subscribe.

Dave:

It's super. It's super important. Honestly, we wanna get the message out and anywhere you see us and you wanna hear our opinions or watch us fumble around and try and talk about something that maybe we're not qualified to talk about, we'll do that too, so just ask. We would love any feedback and, of course, review. Leave us a review. It's super important for we're learning. It would really help get the message out.

Lauren:

Lots of learnings going on here, so thanks for hanging with us. See you next time. See you on the next one, thank you.