I wanted to do something on today's podcast that could serve as a super helpful reminder for all of us business owners and human beings. And I wanted to record a podcast that we can all come back to time and time again, when we are really kind of believing that we're not gonna achieve our goals or believing that we're not doing it right, or feeling like we're, we're not making progress fast enough or whatever the story is that you like to tell yourself.

I like to tell myself about being a business owner and we all have stories. We all have stories that we tell ourselves, right? It's so fascinating because the more I really start to dig into some of the kind of mental roadblocks, mental barriers that many of us as floral designers have. And I start to connect with other designers outside of our industry.

I realize we are all the same. We all have stories that we tell ourselves around what is possible, what we are allowed to do, what we're supposed to be doing and how we're supposed to show up. And I think it could be very beneficial to all of us to have a podcast episode that we can come back to, particularly when you feel like you are like deep into it.

I'm thinking very, like very specifically about mother's day Valentine's day, Christmas, spring season, like whatever that kind of peak trading period is for you in your business, when you feel like the world is like on your shoulders. I want you to come back to this podcast episode. I want us to kind of use this podcast episode as a bit of a north star, as a guiding light for getting ourselves back into the head space and really managing our thinking and understanding, okay, let's get back to basics here.

And I've been working on this concept that I we've just been calling the flower boss success formula. I know it's pretty creative guys, super creative as a aside is a total aside. I know some of you guys know this story, but just to share it with all of the people, one of my favourite things to do when I'm sitting down and doing the work I don't want to do, but I know my future self is going to be so grateful that I do I E systems and processes and organizing things which make me really want to poke my eyes out.

One of the, that I like to use to bring a little bit of excitement into that activity is listening to live concerts on Spotify and listening to these albums that maybe one of your like favorite performers has put out that is actually a live performance.

So there's so many artists who have performed at, you know, whether it's Madison square gardens or live at red rocks or insert name of famous Coliseum or famous stadium or famous venue.

There's so many amazing live concerts that we can listen to. And I love doing some of what I will consider the monotonous work that really makes me want to poke my eyes out and do it to a live concert, because it kind of keeps me entertained. And you know, it's a little bit of a treat in amongst the pain and suffering, but I was listening to one of the good old FAS Dave Matthews.

If you're a child of the eighties and nineties, then you are probably part of the collective, but he was doing a concert with Tim Reynolds. It's like kind of a classic acoustic performance that they put on. And he was talking about how he came about naming one of his songs and he's like, well it was the 41st song that I wrote. So I called it number 41.

I was listening to this a couple of weeks ago. And I was like, I am so glad. I'm so glad when I can hear other creatives, not feeling like they need to put the weight of the world on their own shoulders and be creative all of the time. It's like, yeah. I mean, it's a very practical solution. Let's just call it number 41 because it's song number 41 that I wrote. So good. That's a total aside, but there you go.

My friends, welcome to my little bubble of crazy back to the point of this podcast within this notion called the flower boss success formula, and really mapping up for you guys. How do we show up as the flower boss and how do we build profitable businesses and what is the exact structure and formula to follow?

I wanted to make sure before we all get distracted with all of the, what to post Instagram and how to navigate wedding inquiries. And let's really, Finese our websites and SEO and all of the things that you learn within the program. I wanted to come back and make sure that when we're kind of in that river of misery or the pit of despair, whatever you want to call it when you're like, I'm not really sure I'm gonna hit my goal.

I want you to come back to this podcast episode. So I want you to earmark it. I want you to save it. I want you to download it, whatever you need to do. Here's the thing, my friend, having a resource that you can come back to when you're in the middle of a crazy period and you feel like you're out of alignment can be so helpful because as a human being with a human brain, you have a built in negativity bias.

Literally your brain is going to present to you more negative thoughts than it is going to present to you. Positive thoughts when left to its own devices and because your human brain is also programmed for efficiency. Many of our most favourite negative thoughts are going to be on repeat. And for most of us, 99% of the time, it's a version of I'm not good enough, but here's the thing to know as a human being, you also have a human brain that has this thing called neuroplasticity.

If you Google it, if you look up what the heck is neuroplasticity, that sounds complicated and intricate. Here's what the people on the internet have to say. It's underst that the brain possesses the remarkable capacity to reorganize pathways, create new connections. And in some cases even create new neurons. This is called neuroplasticity.

You might also hear it be referred to as brain plasticity, but it's the idea that you can actually create new beliefs for yourself. The easiest examples that I can always think about when I'm thinking about telling these stories in a bit more detail are if you've ever experienced for yourself or you've witnessed in somebody else, a sudden instant change in behaviour, because they've been through what might be considered like a traumatic experience, a life or death situation, or they've been handed the worst case scenario in terms of possibly an illness or a disease.

You'll always hear those stories of people who may have developed lung cancer. And then within minutes they just decide they're never gonna smoke again. It's that capacity of the human brain that we can actually use to our advantage. And it might be maybe in your life as a human navigating your life, you have received some horrible news and all of a sudden your priorities change, right?

I think about as our parents get older, when something really devastating happens, your priorities change. This is all in response to the fact that you are a human being with a human brain and you have the capacity to rewire your own brain. It is so insane that we can do this, this whole idea that the theory goes something like the human brain isn't fully developed until about the age of 25. Then we have to, as supposed adults continue to add onto the learning and the information to keep our brain kind of ticking as long as possible.

But here's the thing because your brain is also programmed for efficiency. It's gonna continue to think the same thoughts. It's always thought until you as the very intelligent human being comes in to interrupt the whole cycle. I often like to visualize this as like the I five or whatever the busy motorway is in your state or your city. And you're gonna continue to drive the same route to work every day.

There's a level of familiarity and almost comfort that comes with it to the point where you can almost drive that entire drive without you even having to consciously think about it. There's moments that we have of like I left the house, but I don't quite remember how I got here.

We all do that, right? Don't mind the fact that this is like a heavy piece of machinery in a life or death situation being on the highway. But that idea that it becomes fairly unconscious because it's so well practiced. Every single thought that you have in your head has a very similar experience. So much of what we're thinking.

If you are thinking 60,000 thoughts in the run of a day, most of it's completely unconscious. Most of it is just on repeat and this idea of really setting the foundation and getting back to basics. And let's get back to like .0, where we can believe in the possibility of our success, this idea that we're going to spend time at the very beginning of that dream and set the foundation to believe in the possibility of it happening and the problem that we face as human beings.

And this is for all of us, right? Every single one of us sitting around this table, it takes effort and intention and practice the human brain. One left to its own devices would really like to do this same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, please and thank you like every day, it wants to do the same thing and we're all kind of fighting the powers that be, and the like mothership of Facebook and Instagram or meta, whatever you want to call them and the kids at Netflix let alone the, of what we face as human beings everyday in the world.

This idea that we would have to go out of our way and get uncomfortable in order to change our behavior in order to change how we feel in order to change how we think. And it's so helpful to remember that your first job is to come back to the beginning and to believe that it is possible to get really crystal clear on what your own version of success looks like, regardless of what you've done in your business ever before, what you've accomplished in your life.

Up until this moment in time, what you thought your identity is up until today. I want you to spend time just believing in the possibility of your success and sitting in that space of potential sitting in that space of possibility. And one of the kind of traps we fall into is, well, I'll just try and think more positive all the time. I'll just surround myself with positive affirmations.

After a while, you're like, it's not working. My brain is still negative. I still keep hearing all of these negative thoughts in my own head. True. Correct. Welcome to being the human being, because again, your brain has a pre-programmed negativity bias. So the reason that so many of these affirmations don't necessarily work is because we don't believe them. Right. That whole idea of, if somebody tells Kathleen to charge her worth, I'll be like, great.

Then it's $0. Like that meme that goes around or that headline that goes around, that's like charge your worth and as tax. Yeah. So, uh, if Kathleen does that, it's gonna be a $0 program and $0 in tax. Would you all like to participate? No. Yeah. Maybe, but it is because we are human beings and we have a built in negativity bias. The whole idea of just be positive.

You should think more positively. Yeah, Well it's hard and that's okay. Right? Because it takes intention and it takes awareness. And at the end of the day, one of the things that has become so obvious to me is nobody sits us down, right? Whether we're 10 years old, 20 years old, 30 years old, 40 years old, right. Even 80 years old, nobody sits us down and like says, Hey, just pause for one hot second.

As a human being, you have a human brain. You're human brain is an organ. And like the lungs that you have whose job it is to breathe, your brain's job is to think now you are a human being and you have a brain, but that doesn't mean that you have to be your thinking, this idea that we can actually think about what we're thinking about. The fact that as all of us, as human beings are like, you know that little voice in your head.

Like we could say those words out loud and other human beings understand what we're even talking about. Like, I still say that to my dog and she is still not yet responding to me one day, one day, I am sure it will happen and I will share it on Instagram, but nobody has sat us down and said, okay, so here's the deal. You've got a human brain, it's got a pre-program negativity bias. You've been conditioned to believe a whole bunch of bullshit it about your own self worth.

Now let's pay attention to it. And let's start to rewire that thinking. And anytime somebody tells you to just be positive, smile and nod and go, okay, I will try. But I also am going to give myself a bit of grace because my brain is programmed for negativity.

The way we roll as human beings and this idea that we can build the skillset, we can build up repetition and practice and become the watcher of our own brain and decide if we want to continue telling ourselves the same BS stories that we've always told ourselves or if we want to try on new thoughts just to see what happens.

And we can come back to the bare bones to the total basics and try on the thought of it is possible. It is possible that I will make this work. It is possible that I can figure this out. It is possible that despite the continually forever rising costs of everything, I can still build a profitable business. It is possible. It is one of the most powerful thoughts that you can bring your brain back to.

It's so helpful in instances where you might have 14 weddings coming up and you're like, oh my gosh, how am I even going to navigate this? Or it might be that you've gotten yet another update about fluctuating supply of flowers or staff or whatever challenge you're navigating at this moment in time. Or it might be you're 48 hours out of what you wanted to have as your most successful mother's day on all time.

And there's that little bit of doubt that creeps back in. You can, and I will encourage you that when we are in that peak of anxiety and stress and our brain, I like to describe it as having like a Ferris wheel. Like it's having a party, it's having a good old freak out about whatever it is that we're navigating within our business or our life. But you can come back to the beginning, come back to the idea and bring your brain back to focus on the thought to build the belief of it is possible.

You will show up in a very different way and you will be able to create clarity for yourself in a very different way. When you learn to bring your brain back to the idea of just believing in the possibility. And it's so powerful because it is so simple and Eckhart Tolle, who is the author of the power of now and a new earth. And I will tell you guys, like I am all into listening to audio books, but wow. Like If you want to have a nap, just put on Eckhat Tolle, and there you go.

It's like, it's a whole other frequency possibly, but it's very valuable information because it's so powerful. He says in a new earth, rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them rather than being your thoughts and emotions be the awareness behind them.

The whole premise of this concept is to start who pay attention to the stories, to the sentences that are flying through your head. And there's a lot of them, there's a lot of sentences that are flying through that head of yours. And remember most of the sentences that are going to rise to the surface that you can even become aware of are just sentences that you have told yourself again and again and again, and because of your brains, inbuilt negativity bias because of your brain's drive for efficiency. We're gonna keep telling ourselves the same stories over and over and over again.

We're going to keep believing our own bullshit until we redirect it until we can interrupt it. So with all of this, with this idea of let's get back to the beginning, let's get back to basics and let's just start to believe in the possibility. Here is my five step process to help you really sift through and in those moments of anxiety and extreme self-doubt.

When you are second guessing, whether you should show up on Instagram, what to post to Instagram, you yet, another client has said it's too expensive. All of those scenarios that we all navigate as business owners, five steps that you can walk through in order to really get back into your own personal power. And step one is to come back to the practice of becoming the watcher. And I know I've talked about this before, and it's very easy for us to lose sight of the power of this experience, but it's as Eckhart Tolle.

It totally says where it's like, rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them. And this idea of being able to kind of zoom out of your own head and just pay attention to what the conveyor belt of your brain is offering up. And it's this idea of increasing your awareness and creating even just that little bit of space, that little bit of distance between the thought in your head and you as the human being.

Just the fact that you know, that those are two different things is so powerful because you get to decide if the sentences in your head are serving you because you are a human being with a human brain and you have that higher self, that ability to look at your brain and observe what you're thinking. You get to ask your self. This thought that I'm thinking is it serving me?

And this is step two is once you begin to become aware of your thinking and you start to observe the portion of the 60,000 thoughts that run through our heads, you get to ask yourself, is it helpful? Is it helpful for me to tell myself I don't have enough time? Is it helpful for me to continue to believe I can't charge that much? Is it helpful for me to stay on, repeat around? I've got too much on my plate.

I've got too much to do. This is hard. And this work is particularly helpful for those thoughts. That feel very true to us. Those stories that we tell ourselves that are so well practiced so well on repeat most of the time, it's a version of, I don't have enough time. This is hard. I'm not good enough. We all have a version of it around pricing.

My customers don't want to pay that much. I'm constantly inundated with price shoppers. The reason it feels true is because we've practiced it a lot. It's just very real because it's so deeply ingrained that brain matter and that super highway, right? That cognitive connection that we have around that one thought feels very true because it's so deeply ingrained in us all because we've practiced it so much. And we, when you can become the watcher of your own thinking, and then you can start to question some of those really juicy thoughts.

Like, is it helpful if I continue to tell myself I'm not enough? Is it helpful? If I continue to tell myself I don't have enough time, is it helpful? If I tell myself, all my customers care about is the lowest price option. And it's a, a really powerful perspective to give yourself because you can start to see the answer is no, but then you can start to open up to the possibility.

This is where we get to really shift our own perspective and shift our own thinking and step to a more empowered and involved version of you. So through step one of just becoming the watcher, observing what's going on inside of your own heads, step two, then asking yourself with any one of those beliefs that you really know isn't serving you. You can look at it and go, okay. Is it helpful? If I continue to tell myself I'm not good enough. If I continue to tell myself, I'm not deserving.

If I continue to tell myself, it's never gonna work because I'm not qualified. Is it helpful? No. Okay. Then what do I want to tell myself? And we all have those stories. We all have stories of either. I'm too old. I'm new. I'm just getting started. I'm not qualified. I'm not good with technology. I don't have enough Instagram followers. I'm just an artist. I'm just a creative. I'm only good at, I'm not good with numbers. Pricing is hard. We all have these very well practiced. Internal dialogues. Every one of us will have like our headline. One day, we'll all go to times square and we'll put them up. Awesome.

But this idea of just very matter-of-factly. Is it helpful? If I continue to tell myself I'm new, is it helpful? If continue to tell myself I don't have enough Instagram followers, is it helpful? If I continue to tell myself I'm not qualified? No, it's not my friends. Because when we tell ourselves I'm new, I'm too old. I'm not deserving. I'm not enough. We all know what happens in that movie.

Like it is the most boring experience on the planet. It, because nothing happens like us. I put myself in this bucket, right? Sitting here going, I'm not enough. I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. I'll never be able to figure this out. I don't deserve this. What happens? Nothing.

Like I don't take any action to move forward it in my business, zero zilch, nada. It's like the perfect solution for paralyzation. Just continue to tell yourself you're not enough. And nothing will happen. This idea though, that our brain went left to its own devices is always going to come back and tell that story. It's always gonna want to come back to that really well practiced narrative and this idea that our brain is built on efficiency.

So if you're like me and for whatever, 35 years, 42 years, you've been telling yourself I'm not enough. Okay, brain. I get it. I get it. Okay. So we're programed for efficiency brain. I understand you want to come back. It's like magnetized to that storyline and it's very clever, very, very clever. But when we can pause, increase awareness of our own thinking and then ask ourselves, is it helpful?

Is it helpful if I continue to tell myself that story? No. Okay, great. And this idea that you choose to believe anything you want to believe. I love thinking about the fact that at some point in human history, these fellas thought that the earth was flat. I love thinking about that idea because it really shows you how much humanity has evolved. And when more information, when information comes to the surface, every human can then decide for themselves.

What would I like to believe? What would I like to be telling myself in this situation? And remember your brain, like your human brain is like a kid wielding a knife. Like nothing good is going to come from it, except maybe something viral on TikTok, but then you're gonna have all the trolls being like that's unsafe. So maybe not, it might not be worth it, but your human brain when left to its own devices is like a kid wielding a knife.

And here's where I think we can all get ourselves lost in the like kind of therapeutic deep dive of like, I wonder why I believe that. And where did that come from? And in some cases that can really be helpful. But I also want to invite you to know that you don't even necessarily need to have identified where your previous belief came from.

You don't even necessarily need to spend time dissecting why it is that you believe that. And you can instead open yourself up to the possibility of building a new belief system and building a new belief system that feels more empowering. And I know that every one of us, every one of us that listens to this podcast has a story around I'm not enough. And that is something that's really been pushed onto us from the society and communities that we've grown up in.

And it's going to continue to perpetuate itself because so much of Western culture is attached to more stuff, more followers, more fame, more money, like more, more, more, but that belief system is totally optional. And this really like back to basics idea of your worthiness is 100% whole and intact.

Your brain is just doing what human brains do. And it's practicing a story that has been pushed onto us for forever. And we can come back to the idea, come back to that concept of neuroplasticity. Come back to the notion that we can build a belief to tell ourselves any story we want to. So what story do you want to tell yourself? So in your brain, when you hear that I don't have enough credentials or I'm not qualified, maybe it's, I'm too old. I'm not good with tech. It's not a helpful story to tell us.

It's not a helpful story for you to continue to tell yourself because it's going to paralyze you into inaction. And that story is what keeps us stuck. And it feels so true, but I promise you, it's not. So once you start to understand, okay, these are the stories that are on repeat in my head. This is what I know isn't helpful for me to continue to tell myself the next question that you're going to ask me is like, but how do I start to tell myself thoughts that instill me into action?

Great question my friend, and here is step three. If you close your eyes and you think about your most successful thriving, beautiful self, when you think of you walking into your dream flowering workspace or your dream design studio, or your dream workspace, your dream shop, when you think of yourself at the peak of your success, how do you feel?

How do you feel when you listen to that music? When you smell the flowers, when your feet are like in your boots and your hands are on the work bench, and you're picking up your scissors and you're tying your apron and you've just turned the music on, maybe you've poured yourself a beautiful cup of tea, maybe you're drinking coffee. Maybe you've got a mimosa at that moment in time. When you envision yourself at your own success, whatever that means to you, maybe you're even in the field, maybe you, you are planting Dalia tubers.

Maybe you are looking forward to end of summer weddings. Maybe you have five weddings on the books. And you're just at the like precipice of putting your order in, at the wholesaler for one of your biggest weddings ever, wherever you are in that future version of yourself in that success version of yourself.

When you think of that version of you, how does she feel? And I want you to go deeper than just confident or I feel good. I want you to think about emotions. Like I feel seen, I feel acknowledged. I feel recognized. I feel powerful. I feel important. I feel appreciated. I feel love. I feel joy way.

I feel successful and we all have our own version of the goal that we might have in our business that we're pushing ourselves, striving to really driving, to create, to have, it might be that you want to get featured in some magazine. Maybe you want to be on the cover of a magazine. If you put yourself in that future version of yourself, you pick up that magazine and you feel the glossiness and the paper and you smell it and you look at it and you see that kind of iridescence on the cover.

How do you feel having accomplished that? Or maybe part of your own version of success is having booked an 8k wedding and the client pays their original initial payments and you've officially secured it and your contract comes back. How do you feel, how do you feel in that moment or maybe your dream is to open that beautiful flower shop. Maybe you want to move your flower shop, right? And you want a place that has beautiful natural light and parking out front and grew tunes. And there's a coffee shop and a donut place. And a friend of yours might own a gallery, or you're gonna get to of the people that own a gallery down the hall.

When you think about mowing around in that shop and having customers come in and the phone rings, how do you feel and identify that feeling for yourself. And I will really encourage you to go beyond.

I know for many of us, the default is like, I just want to feel confident, find more ways to describe it for yourself. Find more specific emotions that you want to give yourself. So step three is to think about how you are going to feel when you have achieved, whatever it is that you want to achieve next, put yourself in that space and identify that emotion. And step four is to then bring that emotion to your work now. And this is the most amazing thing about this concept is that you are allowed to feel successful, seen, recognized, appreciated, acknowledged important, powerful love, joyful, successful.

You are allowed to feel that way right now. And this is like true mindset mastery of really articulating and defining for yourself. How is it that I think I'm going to feel when I have achieved my next goal, when I have achieved my next outcome and bring that energy into your work today, this idea of reverse engineering, our approach, let's go to that place where you would define yourself as successful paint that picture for yourself.

What is going on in your head? What is that version of you thinking and bring that to your work today. And you can do this on a very specific minute scale. And if we're thinking about something like Valentine's day or mother's day, or maybe you've got a busy wedding season coming up and you've accomplished all of it, you've made your money.

You've navigated the handful of customer complaints that you're gonna get. You've given yourself a little bit of a holiday and you're ready to sit down and you're like, wow, I did it. I made it happen. Put yourself in that future version of yourself and really ask yourself like, how am I going to feel when I have achieved this result? And it might be mother Sunday night, 9:00 PM. If you're still awake, mother's day Sunday, when it's all done and dusted, how will you feel?

And then on the Wednesday and the Thursday and the Friday and the Saturday, and even the Sunday morning before that your job is to come back and believe in the possibility that you can do this, bring the feeling you've identified from your future self into the now and believe that it is possible. And step five is give your brain some grace when it really wants to fight you on the fact that it's not gonna work be because of your human brain's negativity bias.

It is gonna scan the world and continue to find evidence to support your old belief. It's going to continue to ask you to obsess over the customer, complain or ask you to obsess over the last customer who came and told you it's too expensive. That's what our human brain does. And really recognizing that this is a daily and sometimes hourly practice, but always remembering because you are a human being with a human brain in every moment in every day, you get to decide how you want to show up.

You get to decide to choose. If you want to believe, if it's possible, even without the evidence staring you in the face at this moment in time, this is a daily practice. My friends, a moment to moment experience. It's like bringing yourself back into a recalibration because our brain and our mind when left unmanaged is going to be fucking wielding a knife all over the kitchen, and it's gonna continue to come back of, I can't do this. It's too competitive. I'm not smart enough. I'll never be able to figure this out. I don't have enough time. I'm not good with technology. I don't have enough credentials, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But you can come in and interrupt it.

Because the UN mind will always go to I'm not enough always, but you're a human being. And you have the ability to think about what you are thinking about and the ability to change the narrative in your head.

And the practice here is to come back to an intentionally point, your brain back to the thoughts that make you feel successful right now, this work is so powerful. My friends, and it is like doubly powerful. When you're in those cycles of extreme self-doubt and extreme uncertainty. It's like so grounding to come back to the basics of just believing in the possibility of your success.

My friends, I will tell you, if you want to dig into this work any deeper, come join us inside the flower boss bootcamp. These are the concepts that I teach. This is what we do. We take this work even deeper and you can get coaching on it. You can get support. You can get help to really untangle some of that self-doubt some of that on repeat, I can't seem to get rid of this internal dialogue.

So incredibly powerful and even better than that is the private community who continues to show up and continues to share their experiences so that you can learn from others and really start to see that you are not alone and you are not broken my friends, this idea, being a human, being, running a business, and really changing, changing the narrative in your own head and doing what we can do to really move this industry forward.

Okay. My friends. So come back and listen to this podcast episode, come back and revisit these five steps anytime you feel like you're completely paralyzed with self-doubt and I am not good enoughness. My friends as always, please drive safe. Please drink some water, get some extra sleep, and I'll talk to you again next week. Bye for now.