Feeling stuck between “I know I need to change” and “I just don’t feel like it today”? This episode is all about the real inner game of reinvention: your mindset.
In this conversation, Todd Jason and Chris Thide unpack what it actually means to build a growth mindset when you’re a mid-career professional facing big questions about work, money, and identity. Instead of vague “think positive” advice, they give you a practical mental framework you can use on real Tuesday mornings when your mood is in the gutter and your to-do list is screaming.
You’ll learn:
-
Why most midlife professionals are wired toward negativity, fear, and worst-case thinking
-
The core principle: “Follow your plan, not your mood”
-
The two paths in any bad day:
-
Push through with willpower (Tony Robbins mode)
-
Allow & reflect so you can reset, not just grind
-
-
How to use “allow & reflect” without getting stuck in a spiral
-
Todd’s personal practices: solo walks, self-talk, using music to access and release emotion
-
Chris’s tools: morning pages, gratitude, and how to turn a rough day into an 8/10 instead of a zero
-
Why honoring your emotions actually makes you more productive, creative, and resilient in your reinvention
If you’re reinventing your career, being shown the door, burned out from corporate, or already on the path and riding the emotional rollercoaster, this episode gives you a way to work with your mood instead of constantly fighting it.
Your next career move can be your best one yet. This is how you build the mindset to make that possible.
**Subscribe to our ReInvention Podcast and stay on the cutting-edge with fresh ideas and practical tools to navigate the future of your work!
Full Episode Transcript
Chris: It’s not the way modern life is set up for most people. So we have to be intentional about creating boundaries and time in which to do it Yo, Chris man. What are you doing? Whatcha you up to I’m just helping people reinvent their lives. No big deal. Yeah. No, no big deal. Well, I’m gonna join in. Cool.
Todd: What’s up brother? Chris, how you doing man? How you feeling going on, man? I’m doing good. How are you, Todd? Well, I’m good. You know, I’m excited to talk about this buzzword of mindset, especially for Reinventors we gotta get out of this mindset that the word mindset is just the buzzword, right? We gotta take it a little bit more seriously.
Chris: Yeah, for sure. I like this idea of we’re trying to make it more concrete for people, right?
Because it’s important and even the, buzzword elements of it are important, but like, how can we make this more of the practical philosophy, right? That’s where we’re coming at. Things from this practical philosophy that you can make part of your life.
Todd: I think that especially when you’re in a transition or one is coming this is when you’ve gotta turn to your internal game, and examine how are you perceiving things and start to upgrade it. And what I love about what we’re gonna talk about today is actually giving a practical framework for improving your mindset, right?
Like a real framework that is not terribly hard to do, and we’ll talk a little bit about that, but can actually make a dent in how you get up in the morning and how you feel, so that way you’re more optimistic and positive.
Chris: Yeah, for sure. and I feel like I’m, I’m living some of this stuff, right?
I mean, we talk about our favorite phrase about plan and mood, right? Follow your plan, not your mood. I’m really putting that into practice. Like in my own life all the time right now. And it’s just, I mean, the results are incredible. Right. And I think you’re, you’re doing this too, I think I’m taking a cue from you on this stuff, right?
You’ve been doing it longer than I have, but I think there’s some magic there for sure.
Todd: Yeah. We’re gonna talk about follow your plan, not your mood. That’s like a big thing we’re gonna talk about. But actually before we like jump into the deep end of the pool. I love that saying, by the way, follow your plan, not your mood.
And stick around for this session because you’re gonna get some value out of that and motivation to how to do that. But like the goal of this, and the way that we think about it when it comes to reinvention is to help you raise the bar of your mental state to be more optimistic and positive by default.
Right. I wanna check in with you around just this notion of positivity and optimism. ’cause it sounds a little bit pie in the sky, but we gotta start there because the goal of this call right now is to establish ways that we can literally become more positive, but also raise the bar so that way that becomes more of our default setting, if you will.
Right. Yeah. So in your opinion, man, like why, why optimism? Why positivity?
Chris: I mean, don’t have to over complicate it. It’s like when I’m feeling optimistic and positive, I’m getting more shit done. Mm-hmm. I’m, you know, I’m doing better, I’m actually moving the ball forward on all the things that I want to advance.
Say we were not focusing on our own mindset and managing it. I mean, we all have good days and bad days. I think that’s the secret about coaches that we have to put out there too, is that we also as human beings, have good days and bad days. Mm-hmm. Right?
And I think everyone would agree that when you’re having a bad day or you’re feeling negative, you’re not as productive just by definition. Like that is what comes along with it. So just right there, I think the idea of, how can we foster that optimism, that positivity, just from the simplest perspective of like getting shit done.
Todd: Well, the funny thing about it is that, I have to just flip it for a second, mm-hmm. Why do we as people in a culture value negativity and pessimism so much, It’s almost like we have to sell people on the notion of being more optimistic and positive because the response that I get from people when, and look, I’ve been coaching for 20 years, right? Yeah. And like, I’m always saying this like, let’s, let’s train ourselves to be more optimistic and positive and say, well, how can we, like, look at the state of the world, like look at the state of my relationships, look at the state of my bank account.
Like there’s so much to be scared about. There’s so much to be worried about. Right. And I’m like, like I get it. Like I absolutely get it. And by the way. I think we’ve talked about this, , there was that study where they studied the brainwave states, and you know, in general, humans do about 6,000 thoughts per day.
Okay. And most of the thoughts are repetitive, like 80 to 90% are the same thoughts that we had yesterday. And the studies showed that a high proportion, could be as high as 70 to 80% skew towards worry, self-criticism. Yeah. Future focused anxiety. Okay. So we are wired to think negatively. We can go all the way back to like fight or flight and , okay, like we used to live in the wilderness and there’s a lot of danger.
Chris: This is where it all comes from. This is where it all comes from,
Todd: right
Chris: yeah. Yeah.
Todd: But it’s like at this state, at this day and age, we’re not living in the forest, right? So we can put that aside. But then this is the hardest work. You know, that’s why this call is so important because it’s learning to like just deal with the reality that we are wired, most of us to think pretty negatively. But we can lift up that record needle and we can start to train ourselves to think more positively.
And that makes all the difference. And I love what you said, the reason why is what I found in training people to do this is that we also think more creatively, we see more opportunity, like we understand that our lives are short and that we might as well make the most of it, you know? And it gives us the fuel and the resilience to get through the hard things that happen.
Right?
Chris: Yeah. And hard things do happen, right? I mean, I think that’s another thing, maybe a fallacy to just try to poke it is like, we’re not sitting here, we’re not like saying everything’s wonderful. Everything’s always wonderful. It’s actually the opposite of that. It’s actually like bad things are going to happen to people.
That is life. We have bad days, we have bad moods, you have bad weather and you can have some really tragic shit happen. It’s all going to happen. The question is, what do you do after it? What do you do with it? Because we could all find a million excuses why to stay stuck and not to change and to say, I can’t do X, Y, Z because of, all these other circumstances. And listen, I’m speaking from experience like I spent a lot of my life telling myself why I couldn’t do something because of X, Y, Z around me. Mm-hmm. And yeah, there’s circumstantial limitations and there’s talent limitations like we talk about too. But, at some point the switch flipped, right?
And I just said, I’m gonna just not allow my perception that I can’t do something be what holds me back.
Todd: And that makes all the difference. Like literally makes all the difference, right? So I wanna talk about this, follow your plan, not your mood. And like before we just jump into that. Okay? If you’re out there listening to this, you know what we’re saying here very clearly is that when you’re in this process of reinventing yourself, your career.
The fastest way to get to success is to train yourself, to be optimistic, positive, and to look at things with opportunity. Like that is why we’re here and we’re gonna give you some real tools, practical advice for how to do that. So, you know, we say, in our calls, like the reinvention Bible, like the language that we use is follow your plan, not your mood.
And I wanna break that sentence down a little bit, right? Because there’s really two parts to it. Follow your plan, not your mood. And the first part, follow your plan. Okay? First you need to have a plan when you’re reinventing. And in 20 years of coaching, Chris, I have been so blown away. ’cause I will literally get on the phone with people, thousands of people.
Chris: Mm-hmm.
Todd: And you know, they start telling me why they’re here, what they want. And I’m like, what do you really want? Like, what’s your vision? Like, give me a few sentences about your life and your work when it’s like at, its like best, like when everything’s working and people just kind of like, first they’ll say some platitudes, like, oh, well, you know, I have a lot of money and I traveled around.
I’m like, okay. Like, no, like, gimme more like I wanna feel it. It’s tell me what your life is like when you’re like living this way. And at the end of the day, and I can say this brother, after like two decades of this, most people just don’t know, they haven’t taken the time to develop a life vision because you gotta have that to build a plan, right?
You need to actually look at this somewhat systematically, and that’s not gonna be the focus of this call. we’re gonna talk a lot about clarity and game planning and all these things in this podcast and in other ways, but , we gotta start with having a plan because you need that excitement.
Like we call it a North Star, right? Yeah. Talk about the North Star a little bit. yeah.
Chris: Well, I mean, it’s just as simple as saying like, think about the analogy of you’re literally traveling somewhere and you know that question that you just asked people and they can’t answer it is like, what is the destination?
where are you going? You’re in the car, you’re driving, where are you going? Mm-hmm. And it seems like a really fundamental question that we should have the answer to follow your plan. Okay. So now that’s your map from here to there. Right? That’s, that’s really important.
Todd: Like navigating the globe, before maps, right? Like just geographically. Yeah. You talk about these wayfarers, these like amazing people that could go out into the middle of the ocean and like sense the wind and then maybe like in weeks or months time, they would somehow find their way to some remote island because they had some sense, but guess what? Then we became more aware and we discovered navigation. You know that that like got us there really fast and now we have airplanes that get us there, like maps help. And most people don’t have a life map. That’s why we call it that North Star. Like you need to have that plan because without that excitement about what is possible for your life, you’re not gonna have the resilience that’s needed to keep going, to break through the hard moments, like you said, you need to be able to get through the bad moods, which you’re gonna talk about in a moment.
And give some recommendations on mindset, but you need to have that plan first and foremost.
Chris: I speak for myself, but I I know there’s a lot of people that I talk to and I think you talk to as well, that , we’re institutionalized a little bit.
We’re going, we’re riding along with an organization that kind of in a sense has a plan for us. Mm-hmm. You know, when you’re an, when you’re an assistant vice president, the plan is to become a vice president and things like that in these corporate settings or whatever you want to call ’em. And I think part of why you asked that question, and people can’t answer it, is because they haven’t really thought about it from a heart centered, self-centered mm-hmm themselves centered perspective. Right on. You know, they have this archetype that they’re like, you know, I’m a 40-year-old male in the Western Hemisphere, and the plan for me is to make as much money and buy a couple of nice black SUVs. Like, you know, it’s sort of like, that’s not really what we’re talking about here.
We’re talking about deeper stuff. For you as a person, it’s really that going back to clarity, it’s really that hey, on your deathbed and you look back and you say. Oh, I, I did and I tried the things that I wanted to try, you know, I, I’m happy with that. I’m happy with myself.
That’s really what the North Star is.
Todd: Yeah, and I’ve told you this, like I did six months of volunteering in hospice and I spent time at the bedsides of people who all have six months or less to live, right? And I couldn’t help myself, and I was young,
I was like 23, 24, but I couldn’t help myself. Like I would talk to these people and I would ask them questions. They want ’em to share. They’re like, look, your life is short. Go for it. Like live a great life. Don’t have terrible relationships. Like, say you’re sorry to people and heal the things that you know you’re doing and make a plan and like, go for it. Get your talent and play. Like, this is what people would say to me. And so, so, yeah. We’re not gonna go too deep on that right now, but like, hopefully it motivates you to start thinking about clarity and we’re gonna talk a lot about that. Obviously it’s like one of the main things that we do. ‘Cause you really need to have that fuel. But then at the end of the day, let’s switch over to mindset and mood, right? So the second part of this is follow your plan, not your mood. And let’s be really honest, okay? I don’t care if you have the most amazing plan, the most amazing life. Everything is like perfect.
You are still gonna deal with the rollercoaster ride of the mood of the emotions this is just what it is. And so the goal here is to figure out how can we have some framework that helps us not only navigate the rollercoaster ride, but gain some autonomy over it by which we can actually start to uplevel and like I said in the beginning, create more of a default setting to positivity and optimism, right?
So you need to have a framework to siphon that kind of negative, limited fearful full energy over into more positivity. And when you do that over and over again, and this is why modern science is great, they’ve taught us neuroplasticity. Like we are literally laying down tracks in our brain. We can up level our default settings.
Chris: Yes.
Todd: Okay. So like that’s what we’re like talking about here.
Chris: Yeah. Yeah. And I think, go, going back to what we said a few minutes ago, the default setting, the brain is wired to keep you safe. Mm-hmm. Not to make you happy. Right. And what we’re dealing with, we’re lucky. Anybody like you and me. Anyone who’s watching this, listening to this, we’re lucky that we are in 2025, and this doesn’t apply to everyone on the planet, but most of us are quite lucky that we don’t have to be engaged with fight or flight at all times. Our brains evolved in a time when like literally you step out into the woods and you could, you know, a tiger could eat you, right? Right. And so I think what I see with a lot of people. Is we’re sitting in the room with the bear that could eat us scared to go out into the forest ’cause of what’s scary out there.
Right. Right. And I think it’s like this thing of we’re just we’re sitting in the pain that we know trying to avoid the potential pain that’s out there. Yeah. And I, I think that that’s why we have this default negativity in some cases because it’s safer. It’s safer. That’s true.
That’s absolutely true. You say you say no to things, you’ll never get hurt by a new thing if you say no to every new thing.
Todd: Mm-hmm.
Chris: And I think that’s where the negative default setting comes in.
Todd: Yeah. I mean, beautiful. I love that. let’s jump in a little bit.
All right. Because I love this part of it is my favorite part, cause we’re gonna get just tactical here around it. ’cause now we’re talking about mood. And we’re talking about dealing with negative mood, so just fear, doubt, limitation. You all know it. Like , you’ve felt that way.
You’ve had hours like that. You’ve had days like that. Some of us have had weeks or even months like that where we were overcome by the overwhelming, negative thoughts. Okay? And this is the disease in humanity that we are trying to overcome. Not only us of course, but a lot of people. And so just breaking it down, when you get into a negative state, okay, there are basically two options that you can do.
The first is, willpower. Like, all right, let’s follow the plan, not the mood. That’s when you plow through it. Okay. The go, go, go. Tony Robbins esque attitude. And Chris, you know, I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to work with Tony Robbins. I love Tony. I’ve interviewed him a couple of times. Like literally my first interview, I asked him one question.
The guy went off for 45 minutes. I didn’t say a word. Everyone’s like, oh, you did great. I go, I didn’t say one thing. The guy talked for 45 minutes, but it’s Tony Robbins, so whatever. Tony. That’s his stance. It’s always like, go, go, go. And I love it, but, and I’m gonna be honest, like it hasn’t always resonated with me because I, I think there’s another more holistic approach as well that we need to integrate, which is almost the opposite, which is to allow and reflect, when you have a negative state of mind, and we’re gonna talk about how to actually do this. So let’s just start there, with this polar opposite approach you know, my mood is not good, I’m not feeling right now I can either like keep going and plow through it, or I can use a different set of tools.
Which allowed me to reflect on it so that way I can then quickly start moving the needle up into a higher state, a more positive optimistic state. What do you think?
Chris: I think it’s really important stuff you just said though, Todd, right?
the go, go go doesn’t work for everyone and it doesn’t work for everyone at all times. Right, and, and I think that’s really important to acknowledge. I mean, again, we’re both on social media, so we see there’s a million voices on social media that are shouting at you to, like, I always, my favorite thing is to refer to the guys who tell you, get up at 5:00 AM and lift weights and do this and that, and my five to nine before my nine to five and like all that stuff.
Hey, if you, if you can do that every day and like be hyper efficient, hyper productive, then that’s great. Like, and there’s days where I am like that. Mm-hmm. It’s not always like that. It’s not every day. There’s circumstances of life and and stuff. And there’s also mood. There’s also the way you feel and I think it’s like, I like this second path and we can get into this a little bit.
To me it is much more sustainable to be able to say, you know what? I can’t be a 10 outta 10 today, so how can I own it, process it, and get myself to be an eight rather than a zero?
Todd: Right? Exactly. you know that I worked with a, a Japanese Samurai master. I mean, literally, I’m gonna bring him on this podcast and I’ve done physical events with him. He is like outta control powerful. Okay. This guy is like unbelievable. You know, when you’re around him, it’s like he’s really advanced, you know?
And he talks a lot about the yin yang. Everyone knows the yin yang symbol, right? And we all kind of have an idea that it reflects like the different energies, the polarities. And he says, look, he goes the yin and the yang. Yin is more of the feminine recharge energy. Yang is more of the masculine go, go, go energy.
And it’s another example of how we could talk about willpower versus reflection, right? And he says that the proper proportion of yin yang is actually 52% yin or recharge energy and 48% yang or go, go energy, right? And so while I love Tony Robbins, I don’t think he fully honors, the value of the allow and reflect.
That’s why we want to talk about it today because in our philosophy and the reinvention philosophy, you know, it feels like a lot of pressure. Like I understand, we understand. We’re coaching a lot of people who are literally up in the air right now with work, with money, with starting new things, with thinking about going back to some corporate job.
Like there’s a lot of pressure, financial pressure, family pressure, like we get it. So to come in here and say it’s not just plowing through it is a little bit like revolutionary to an extent, because I’ve actually found in 20 years of doing this that the reflection work. And giving value to letting your negativity and your fear and your doubts have some space is the very thing that can propel you forward much more.
If you start to learn to use it as a tool. If you actually allow yourself at times the space to sit with it and allow it and be curious about it. And there’s a lot of different ways to do that, and we’ll give some examples today. And then with a clear boundary that I’m not gonna just stay in the state. And I think that’s the key thing.
Chris: Yeah.
Todd: Right? Like allow and reflect is powerful. If you know, and you have a system and a framework by which I’m gonna give myself some space to do that. I’m gonna allow this to happen, but I’m not gonna stay there in perpetuity. The goal of allowing and reflecting is to get back to the state where I’m gonna go for it.
Where I’m gonna follow my plan, not my mood. Does that make sense, Chris? Like yeah. It’s a little bit complex, but we really want to give like a visceral framework here for people to understand, like these varying states. And we need to allow all of it to be, ’cause we’re human and there’s, it’s complex being human and so I think it’s important to allow and reflect.
But within a, a timeframe, that will allow us to get to that other place faster. I mean, what are your thoughts on that?
Chris: Yeah, I I almost like to label the, the negative thoughts or, whatever. We have something like 6,000 thoughts a day on average. And like, I, that feels low, feels like I’m having a million sometimes, but like, I do like to give them a voice and actually almost like label them I once worked with a coach who called it sort of like the saboteur, like this persona in your mind who is, can say no to everything. I like to give them the floor for a little bit sometimes, like, let’s hear that, as opposed to running away from it. And I think. Listen, I’m not criticizing Tony Robbins, but like for me, mode one, where you’re go, go, go and you’re breaking through the wall all the time. To me is running away from, and not listening to, or not giving that voice their moment to say it.
Todd: That’s right.
Chris: Let’s give the saboteur, for example, the floor. Hear ’em out so you can say, gotcha. Heard you. Thank you. Peace.
Todd: Yeah. You know? That’s right. Let it, let it be. Let it be and this for me is a huge part of my life. Like really personally speaking, like the allow and reflect. I actually systematize it, for example almost every Friday, I will spend three, even four hours by myself in my office space here, , and I will allow myself, the space to do what I need to do to get the negative energy out.
Especially if I’m really feeling it, and sometimes I’ll cry. Sometimes I’ll just like do a lot of movement. I mean, sometimes I’ll listen to music. Giving yourself some time to be human, just to allow the full gamut of who you are to be okay. Is so healing and like it may not work for you to systematize it like for me.
And I think for a lot of people that I’ve coached and trained to do this, it’s messy at first because we’re scared. To like go down that rabbit hole and allow ourselves to feel our own pain and allow ourselves to feel our own doubt and our own limitation. But guess what? We all have it. Every one of us has that 7 billion of us.
And I know this like straight up, I mean, I don’t know about you brother, but like I’ve coached so many people that you would never think would come to a coach like me. ’cause on the surface they have it all. Oftentimes those people will be the ones that are really suffering the most because they’re playing, to an external game.
But they haven’t developed their internal capacity to feel and to allow and to accept, like their humanity. ’cause they’re scared and it doesn’t match the external expectations that others have of them. So that is what it is. So what we gotta do, all of us, like right here, is say, all right. Yes. Like, I’m gonna integrate this idea of allowing and reflecting as part of what I do.
It may be messy. I may not exactly know how to do it, but I know that this can help me make really good decisions, be honest with myself, so that way I can reinvent my life and my work faster and get to a higher level of success that I’ve ever felt before. I’ve really seen that work when people start to use it as an actual tactical approach.
Chris: I mean, this is powerful stuff because it’s like, modern life, unexamined, let’s say, doesn’t leave a lot of space for us to explore our humanity, right. In the way that you said. Right. , For me, I had a visceral, you say, Hey, I take three or four hours on Friday to explore.
It’s I know that there’s a lot of people who would hear that and say, well, like, what am I gonna, what am I gonna pencil in crying from 1130 to 1215? Like, I don’t, lemme talk to my assistant about making room in my calendar for that. That’s how backwards right. Society is.
That it’s like, yeah. Your human emotions, like that’s actually the real shit. Mm-hmm. And all the, PowerPoints in Excels and, and meetings and things, that is the artifice. That’s the stuff that we made up. Right. The real shit. Is the stuff that we’re bottling up so that we can just make the next mortgage payment?
Todd: Yeah, I mean it doesn’t have to be just crying either. I mean, like I’m giving a real personal,
Chris: I just thought that was funny to schedule into your calendar, but
Todd: I’ll be honest, man, like I’m almost at that point, like I almost do that. You know? I would say it’s probably once a month, I mean, it’s really interesting when you do that. Like I’ll have a big cry, ? ’cause it’ll go everywhere. I’ll think about my mom who passed. I’ll think about just a lot of things I allow it to just come up and like the crying thing, especially for men, I mean, most men don’t do this. I’ve taught like really powerful men to cry. Yeah, it’s very, very powerful to be able to do that. And it’s just a release, it’s like you’re just moving energy through your system that needs to be released and at the end of that.
You’re really clear, like my mind is so much clearer and more focused. And then I’ll go back in the house to get some water and my wife will look at me and go, you’re crying over there, huh? So little crazy. She doesn’t do this. Okay. Like, I, I’m doing it and Right. But there’s other ways. Okay. It’s not just about like, setting aside time to cry.
Like we’re talking about going into nature, like taking a walk on the beach or like taking a walk on a path, like listening to music that you like. It could be, just meditating, or like just having a mindfulness practice where you just sit and you allow yourself to feel what’s coming up.
I also use music a lot, particularly music that is nostalgic for me. Like I was born in 1973, so I’ll listen to music from 1980, 1982, like in that timeframe when I was like 7, 8, 9 years old. Yeah. , And like for some reason, I’ll find songs that maybe were played in my household, like I’m actually using it as a tool to get access to emotions, so that way I can just release them.
But the key thing of this is not to just do it, I’m doing it with a purpose. Because when it’s done. I’m done. And I’m not gonna stay in that state that actually, like after an hour or two, I feel great. I’m recharged. It’s the yin yang. I’m using that reflection, that acceptance. And then I’m going back to, all right, let’s get on it.
Because I have a lot to do in this life, ? And there’s a lot of things that I wanna be doing, right? And so it’s, it’s not a lay down, I think it’s an accelerator.
Chris: I think that’s amazing. ’cause what you basically just said is that’s the integration of the mood into the plan. Right. We say follow your plan, not your mood.
And so in a way, to say like, intentionally, I’m gonna focus this time or this moment get there and allow myself to feel it, process it, whatever it is, go into that. take my example, I, I love the music practice you just talked about. ’cause I, I love music. I play music and I, I love music from that era.
You know, that’s what mom had on the radio in the kitchen when I was a kid. But like, what actually happens to me is the song will just hit me randomly and then I’ll be in that nostalgic emotional space. Right. I’ve never intentionally said, let me like, let me go there. Let me purposefully go there. Right?
Because there’s a clearing, and I think that this, again, it’s not the way modern life is set up for most people. So we have to be intentional about creating boundaries and time in which to do it and to say like, it’s really honoring our humanity and allowing ourselves to experience the emotion, experience the feelings, right?
Get through them, you know. Then you can go about your day and get all the shit that you have to get
Todd: done. The million mile long list. I love what you just said. You are doing it, but then to actually like name it as a practice, you know, because the next time can’t you all just see Chris like sitting there in his kitchen, like maybe tomorrow morning listening to something.
He is like, wait, wait, hold on, I’m feeling this emotion. Let me go there a little bit more. Like, yes, that’s what I’m talking about. And by the way, it doesn’t always have to be. These like negative, like disappointed emotions, you know? Right. Sometimes it could be what I found and I, and literally of training a lot of people to do this, like people can toggle into like really beautiful, clear, lucid states of gratitude about what they do have.
And that’s another place that we don’t often allow ourselves to go. Right. You know, it’s like, it’s like we gotta get back to our spreadsheet and our to-do list and like, all right, my job search or like launching this new business, my marketing plan, it’s like overwhelming tactical. It’s overwhelming the Tony Robbins willpower go, go, go. And all we’re trying to say here is start to integrate the full gamut of your emotions. And by the way, those positive emotions. It could be bliss, you know, it could be just like intense appreciation, you know, it could be just, I don’t know, like creative thoughts come up that you don’t often honor.
And you wanna allow them space to also bubble up and emerge. Without being attached that they need to do, do anything like, ’cause a lot of times what people will do is like, oh my God, I got this idea. I need to go put it on my spreadsheet and just like write it out.
Chris: Nothing kills creativity more than like instant conversion of productivity.
Right.
Todd: Look, if it’s a amazing business idea, like it’ll, you’ll remember and it’ll emerge.
Chris: I mean this is, maybe we’re getting a little bit into specifics to something here, but I do think it’s an important thing. It’s , just like the intentionality around going into, you know, the music and the mood and the emotion with creativity.
For instance, I’ve started to get smarter about when the creative flow is happening. Stay in the flow, right? Capture the things, you know, for me, if it’s writing or recording or whatever, capture the things. But then there’s like the editing and converting into a finished product. That’s almost like a different time.
In fact, it actually often is a different time that I do that work. So I think that this is where the more kind of mode too we’re talking about here that’s a little bit more flexible is saying, it’s really giving space to honor kind of like your circadian rhythm as a person.
Todd: That’s right. I love that.
I mean, yeah, and I think this is, we’re talking about like self-mastery, you know? ’cause if you’re reinventing yourself. It’s an opportunity to align. Your future work with your, your best self and what you love, right? So it’s a real opportunity. And so starting to get really specific with how you use your time, I mean, we’re talking about time here sometime is meant for processing emotions, good or bad sometimes is meant for like going forward and going for it like, but the goal is to get ourselves into a positive, optimistic state more and have neuroplasticity kick in by which that becomes our default.
One of the things that I do, one of my favorite practices. Is called self-talk. And what I do is I take walks, which would be more of the allow and reflect time. Like, so I’ll be working for a bunch of hours and then I’ll need a break, and I’ll go for a walk and I’ll put it on my earbuds and people will think I’m talking to somebody on the phone.
But I’m really just like. Like, like just going, I’m just talking to myself and I’m talking about ideas. I’m talking about anything that wants to come up. Like I allow myself, I know you practice morning pages. Mm-hmm. Which is a writing version of that where you just write, write, write, write. It’s a free writing where you just write to get information out.
Very, very powerful practice. Self-talk is like free talk and you just like walk and you talk and you just like allow stuff to come out. It was so powerful for me when I started doing this that I started just to record it. And so what I’ll do is I’ll record my self talks and now I go back and I use Otter ai and I basically just like transcribe it and like literally, like this podcast probably came from like a self-talk.
So it’s, it’s using time, like spending some time to allow yourself to process and then knowing that that’s over. And now it’s more structural, like, okay, now I’m gonna create, I’m gonna like figure out how to use like that part of my brain, the prefrontal cortex to make stuff happen. And I think that’s really important for Reinventors because you need to understand and honor all of it, but you need to be smart about how you’re using it.
Chris: Yeah. think that’s great. I think that’s right and that so many people that are reinventing, it’s it, there is a creative element to this, right? If you’re creating a new business or even just a new way of being. And again, I don’t think this standard structure society is really well set up to honor that or leave space for that.
So we have to consciously make that space for it. And I know for me it was a real transition. It took some real time to get comfortable with this idea of, I’m gonna sit down and write morning pages. Mm-hmm. You know, I’m gonna, I’m gonna try to start every morning with a sense of gratitude.
You know, even when I’m, again, this goes to the mood thing, even when I’m feeling pretty shitty that day. Right. Pretty down that day. What am I grateful for? Let’s start with that. And this goes to some of that neuroplasticity, some of that priming of saying when you’re feeling that kind of way to say, hey, I’m actually, listen, we have a roof over our heads. The kids are in school. It’s going well. This, that, and many times, that resets me and I find myself down a path to like, well, now I’m creating, now I’m thinking about. The business now I’m thinking, you know, it puts me in a state of positivity even when that wasn’t the way I woke up that morning.
Todd: Isn’t it interesting just talking about it, you start to see that you’re already doing this to some extent, but when you’re actually like naming it as clearly as you know, a system for growing and reinventing, like it actually starts to get clearer and clearer, and that’s how you can actually start to catch that more positive kind of wind flow of your life and kind of get there faster. I mean, for me, you know me man, it’s all about speed. Like I want to help people get to success and fulfillment, like really, really fast. And I’ll say that what we’re talking about today is one of the big amplifiers of it. And so I think what we want to do is we’re kind of coming towards the end of this call.
I think this has been like super juicy man. Like I, I love everything that you shared. I think it, you know, it’s been helpful for me just to name a lot of these things, like getting a little tactical, listeners, like start thinking about, number one would be like, make a list of the allow and reflect activities that are right for you.
The things that you’re already doing or the things that you could be doing. Now, number one in your list does not have to be spent three hours on Fridays crying. Okay? Like that might be on my list, but like, you gotta find your own thing. But like literally start getting clear about what are the things the activities and the spaces and the environments that for you represent the allow and reflect and recharge, right? It could be showering, it could be going to the gym, it could be talking to a friend, it could be meditation, it could be, you know, doing all these different things, listening to music, but writing it out is so important because now we’re telling our brain this is a real thing.
I am now taking on this practice and philosophy of allowing and reflecting as a thing that’s gonna propel me forward. So I would say that’s like number one takeaway is write it down, write a list right now of the things that represent that for you.
And then number two, I would say. This is like, if we’re gonna get into it a little bit, Chris, like this is where the nuance comes in. Because what I found is that people have a challenge of knowing when to be Tony Robbins push, push, push. Right? And when to allow and reflect. This is the science of it, to be honest with you. And it’s not a perfect science. It’s not gonna be, but here’s the hack. Okay. That I do myself and I do for others. You’re in it. You don’t exactly know what to do. In this moment in time, you’re feeling stressed, you’re feeling like your thoughts are overwhelming.
You don’t know whether you should push through it or whether you should do what we’re suggesting here. Allow and reflect. Here’s the question you want to ask yourself. What do I need to do right now? Just stop in that moment and just for like 10, 15 seconds, be like, what do I need right now? And that question, 99% of the time spurned the answer.
Sometimes it’s gonna be no, this is a moment to push. I had this yesterday actually, I was not really feeling I knew what to do and I said, what do I need to do right now? And the answer was no. You need to attack this day.
Chris: Hmm.
Todd: You need to attack this day, Todd. You need to be Tony Robbins right now. That’s what you need to do. And know what I did. I attacked the fricking day, Chris and I just like went for it and I got so much done. There were other times. Where it’s like that isn’t right. So a lot of this is know, knowing yourself and becoming more self-aware about what you want, because we don’t want you to like push too hard and burn yourself out.
We also don’t want you to become the next Dalai Lama and just sitting there and meditating all day. ’cause that isn’t what you’re here to do either. Right? So that question, what do I need to do right now is a practice. Write it down. Like make this a mental practice and a physical practice that you do.
Chris: I think at physical practice I’m glad you said that because I’m on my journey from being a corporate guy to being a coach, right? So this is, this is newer in my life, seven years ago, I might’ve scoffed at this, but I think it really is true that a lot of times the answer is, is there’s a physical or a somatic or a body element to it where you kind of know mm-hmm.
At your core, whether this is a push through or whether this is an allow and reflect right moment. Right. You know, your, your brain, your brain almost always is gonna say the shoulds, you should, this is what we should do, should do, should do, should do, should do. ’cause that’s what the brain is good at. But what is actually right for you to me, lives in the chest in a sense, right?
Mm-hmm. I can, I can feel that and be like, yeah, you know, the right thing for me right now is probably actually not to bang my head against this work. It’s probably to go for a nice three mile run. Mm-hmm. And then, you know, almost a hundred percent of the time, I then come back and I end up doing that work and I go through it because running’s, one of the ways I process, you know, writing is one, running is another. You’re all gonna have your own thing. Right? but I think Todd, what we have to say here is it’s like you trust yourself, you know yourself. If you can get your intellectualization out of the way and like actually trust the feeling of it, you kind of know the answer as to what you need to do.
Todd: Totally. I love that man. And I think what we’re talking about here is using the intellect, the analytical part of our minds, and we’re talking about a system here of kind of growing and reinventing and you know, of mindset, growth mindset, which is like very like cognitive, you know, it’s a very cognitive, but that system is allowing your emotions and other parts of yourself to exist, and I think that’s what’s a little bit unique about this. I haven’t fully seen it before. You know, it’s, I’ve been kind of living it and coaching people for a long time, but I think it’s a very beautiful thing to name. Right. So we hope that, you know, as a listener that you’ve gotten that, you know, and that you’ll use this to propel yourself forward, you know, even more, ask yourself that question what do I need right now?
You do know what you need to do. You just don’t have a tool to access that wisdom. And hopefully you got that today. Hopefully you got some tools and motivation to kind of take your life and your work and everything to the next level. Yeah. It was good Jamming. Good jam with everybody.
Chris: feeling good coming outta this conversation because I feel like it reminds me how much control I have actually. Right. And it’s something I’ve been. developing for years now in, in any case, but it’s good to be reminded that, you know, when I’m not feeling it, I have some tools in my kit to process that,
Todd: We can always get better. Like we love to say, right, you are literally living with less than 10% of your potential in play. Right. This is pretty much the truth for all. Virtually all of us, like what we’re talking about here, just like going from 10% to like 12% is like huge, right?
Like, like monumental like energy and like focus. Like all these things happen when you just start moving the needle a little bit. So that’s the game that we’re playing here. I don’t think there’s a more important conversation than this right now. I mean, with everything that’s going on in the world with AI and disruption and the state of the world, like all the negativity, all that we are bombarded, like we do have autonomy.
Yeah. We have much more control over the state of our internal environment. We just need to adopt these tools and use them and get consistent with them. So man, I’ve just loved jamin with you on it and I hope everyone loved it. And uh, yeah I guess we’ll come back at you in the next episode.
