Life's Valleys and Mountaintops

Today we take a deep dive into the scripture and talk about having a renewed mind, forgiveness and Grace. Mike is a serial entrepreneur with a passion to share the Grace of Jesus.

He co-hosts the Grace Coach Podcast with Kevin Smith and after finding it over the holidays, I reached out to ask him to share with you. Today we cover the following topics:

How his heart for Jesus helps him as a business owner.

How Jesus offers us forgiveness for our sins, grace and unconditional love.

For Mindset Monday, how we renew our minds as you will hear in Romans.

Favorite Book and Podcast

The Bible 

Classic Christianity, Bob George

Music credit to

Bob Christopher has a great book and podcast where you can call in to ask questions. https://basicgospel.net/about/bob-christopher/

Links and Credit

https://www.gracecoach.org

The Grace Coach Podcast 

Music with permission and credit with gratitude to Scott Holmes. Song Innovative Corporate  scottholmesmusic.com URL:

Rhonda Britten shares a story that takes most peoples breath away. Today she is here to share the story of how her childhood was taken away in a moment when her father murdered her mother in front of her. The years between him taking his own life after to appearing on Oprah and sharing her story for the first time were difficult. She engaged in self-destructive behavior and built walls to keep people from getting to close.

She has dedicated her life to helping people become fearless and is a Master Coach. One of the skills she teaches is how to listen to a difficult story.  Today she is brave, courageous and vulnerable and opens a window for us to walk along her on her journey of healing.

 

When Rhonda was only 14 her father murder her Mother and then shot himself.  The whole story unfolds in the podcast episode that you can listen to above or on Apple Podcasts.

Free Gift

Fearless Living Gift

Links

RhondaBritten.com

Facebook.com/fearlessrhonda

Twitter.com/rhondabritten

Music: Music credit with gratitude to Scott Holmes. Song Innovative Corporate  scottholmesmusic.com URL: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott_Holmes/Corporate__Motivational_

Have you ever had one too many drinks at a social event and suffered from that regret of having said or done something that you only wish you could take back? I had the privilege of having James Swanwick stop by for the second time to share some great stories about how people are having fun and enjoying the Christmas season without the hangovers, regrets or alcohol.

We dive into his expertise in helping people sleep better, find more clarity, focus, energy and even make more money. If you would like to hear his story from the first interview you can find it here: James

James Swanwick is an Australian-American investor, entrepreneur, speaker, former SportsCenter anchor on ESPN, host of The James Swanwick Show podcast and the author of The 30 Day No Alcohol Challenge. Forbes listed James as one of 25 Professional Networking Experts to Watch.

James quit drinking alcohol in 2010 and hasn't touched it since. His life radically transformed and he has had a lot of success since. His life is about positive mindset and positive health habits and he has created businesses around them.

We talk about failure, staying positive after a failure, the 30 day, no alcohol challenge, sleep and how his new product, Swannies blue light blocking glasses are improving lives. You can hear the entire interview here and be sure to check out the first where he shares his own personal story.

 

Links

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

YouTube

LinkedIn

http://30daynoalcoholchallenge.com

http://jamesswanwick.com/project90

https://www.facebook.com/synergymindset/

 

Music credit with gratitude to Scott Holmes. Song Innovative Corporate  scottholmesmusic.com URL: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott_Holmes/Corporate__Motivational_Music

Burnout to Thriving Entrepreneur with David Ralph

David was determined to see his business thrive. When he was given a stern warning from his doctor that he may only have 6 months left if he didn't slow down, he increased his workload intending to accomplish his goal before his health runway ran out. His ended up burning out and in the hospital needing to scale back his 20 hour days. In today's interview, he shares his journey and the process he created to live a healthy life and run a successful business.

 

David Ralph is the host of the top-ranked online show, Join Up Dots where he  joins up the dots of his guest's lives, highlighting their failures and successes (with more than a few laughs in between)

He is an ex-corporate trainer, with a wife, five kids, a grandson, a cat, and a snail (that might actually be dead already...who can tell?)

The Beginning

When David began Join Up Dots, he was working 20 hour days and wearing all the hats required to get the jobs done. He tells us that being an entrepreneur requires learning new skills daily to keep up with everything that needs to be done.

 

In the beginning, David had not figured out what he was really good at and he did everything. His friends commented that he didn't look well and his hair began to fall out. That was when the doctor told him that he needed to slow down and that he may have a heart attack or stroke in the next 6 months. David figured, if he had 6 months then he could work even harder and as long as he finished the job, before the time was up, he would be ok.

He was living life as if he were Superman but like all mere mortals, burn out hit him again. David is not the type of man to give up and on he pressed. He was determined to figure it out.

Optimized Entrepreneurship for The Solopreneur

David figured out how to optimize his tasks and put systems into place. He has interviewed over 1200+ successful guests on his show and what he took away from all those interviews was that the most successful people are not all that smart. They focus on what they are best at doing, the 10%.

He told us that that thing that you are the best at, the thing that no one can do better than you is the exact thing that you feel guilty for charging for. We dive into some great conversation about how to charge for a service and offer value each step of the way, check out the whole podcast to catch all of the details by listening to the player above or on Apple Music here. David Ralph Interview

Skills

The path to success for David was not straight and easy yet he demonstrated some skills along the way to achieve victory. Here are a few that really stood out to me.

Savouring: Putting a spin on a cold rainy day by enjoying the time in his warm bed.

Vision: Having a vision and the ability to work away towards it each day without giving up until the objective has been achieved.

Optimism: Being able to see the good in situations and to know when it's bad that it will get better. Not giving up.

Humour: From the intro, he used humour as he does on his own show, it lightens up life!

Parting Guidance

If you want to do something, know that it is there waiting for you. It is in your head for a reason, you never get ideas that pop into your head that you don't want to do. That thing that pops in your mind is waiting, it is knocking on your door and it is your duty to open it.

Books

The 4 Hour Work Week with Tim Ferris 

The Rules of Life by Richard Templar

Podcast

Meaningful Money with Pete Matthew 

Links

https://podcastersmastery.com/

https://joinupdots.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidpralph/

https://twitter.

Welcome to the Synergy Mindset Podcast, Mindset Monday Edition.  Nate Ridgeway is here to share about the Scarcity Mindset vs. the Abundance Mindset.  We will find out what the Abundance Mindset is and how can we adopt an Abundance Mindset?

 

 

Nate is a Husband, Father, Entrepreneur, John Maxwell Certified Coach, Pastors’ Son, the Leader of Life Tribe and also has an amazing Second Chance Story. On his website, he says that he is grateful for his second chance at living life wisely and well.

He grew up, The Son of a Preacher Man, that was also, The Son of a Preacher Man and he was also The Son of a Preacher Man. Being the 4th generation involved in church ministry and it taught him to love and value people and how to build things.

Whether you are building things or peoples lives it is in Nate's DNA, in his blood.

Not an Abundance Mindset

Nate shares that he was not always living with an abundance mindset and started off his family in debt by putting the hospital bills on his credit card. They took vacations and paid utilities and at one point got to 50K credit card debt on high-interest cards.

He had the wrong mindset about life, got up to 247 lbs, was totally stressed out, hated life and ended up wondering how he ended up overweight, broke, and frustrated. He has massive desires to make a massive impact in the world and he was not making an impact at that time.

Nate was given the name, Life Architect, by a dear friend of his that had a branding firm and put the story in front of his face. He showed him how far he had come and how he was helping people to re-engineer and redesign their lives. This really played to the DNA of his heart.

A Change in Life

. When he realized change needed to take place in his own life it began step by step. He experienced frustration while he was trying on his wedding/funeral suit and it just wasn't buttoning and he punched the mirror in frustration. It as a wake-up moment of the physical state his body was in. The next was when he went to a financial coach and they uncovered his $600.00 a month Starbucks Habit. He tells us that when you are accountable and you really want to move from scarcity to abundance you are willing to take those kinds of, "spankings" from a coach.

His mindset was a scarcity mindset because he had a lack of abundance in his mindset to be honest with himself and know how to use whatever resources were available to him. He was not in abundance because he had money to spend at Starbucks, he was in scarcity because he was using money that he could have put towards his debt so that he could move towards abundance.

Moving toward abundant living is knowing how to use your resources; time, energy, money, a skill, talent or the gifts that God has given you responsibility. 

The Power of a Coach or Mentor

You have to be willing to submit to a coach if it is going to be effective. There are many coaches and areas of coaching and Nate feels that the coaching fit is special. He recommends taking the time to find a coach where the relationship is the right fit, someone that can help you get what you are looking for. Find someone that has done what you want to do or has been where you want to go.

 

Listen to the whole interview to find out what those steps are and hear the rest of Nate's Journey. Find out how he developed a Rockstar Abundance in his life and how it has allowed him to make a massive impact in the world. Listen on Apple Podcasts or by clicking on the player above.

Nate's Fav Book:

Think and Grow Rich

The Bible 

The PodcastNate's Listening to:

Amy Porterfield

 

Links

Nate's Website: http://nateridgeway.com

facebook: https://www.

Life is a gift and at any moment can be taken from us. It is a miracle that our guest today is alive and here to share his amazing story. He brings hope in the darkest of places and wisdom he learned from a difficult journey.

Danny Bader is a best-selling author, inspirational coach, a member of the Elite Catholic Speakers Organization, CatholicSpeakers.com, and he has an inspiring Instagram page. He has worked with some of the biggest organizations in the nation and has delivered over 10,000 hours inspiring others to live their best life. His purpose of sharing his time with us today is to tell us about how a near-death experience transformed his life.

Life Today

Danny Bader lives outside of Philadelphia Pennsylvania with his wife and three children. He spends time with his family, travels, works, goes to the beach, runs and works out a little bit.

 Second Chance Story

Take us to the moment in time that you would consider the worst moment of your second chance story and tell us the STORY. We’ll share what you learned.

Danny was in an accident before he was 29 years old. He and his friend were lowering a ladder and tragically and certainly mistakenly hit an electrical line that had 8-10,000 volts of electricity in it. It came down the metal ladder and went into their bodies and killed his friend Bruce that day. Bruce was a great father of 3 a husband and only 36 years old.

Danny had an experience of peace and knew he was dying or dead. His soul, spirit, life force, energy (whatever you want to call it), left his body. He absolutely believes now that when our human bodies stop working, there is a part of us that continues on. He called his book, Back from Heaven’s Front Porch, because he had an experience of that but he knew he had further to go, he explains that experience as being on Heaven's front porch, and then he was back in his body. It was the strangest experience he has had and not of this world.

He crawled over and helped the other brother Stew, and he was trying to help Bruce. He asked him how he was here? Danny took his boots off because his feet were killing him. He took off his boots and socks and feet had little holes in them. There was not any blood because the electricity cauterized them.

Stew came over and asked Danny what happened. Danny told him he must have hit a wire and Stew said he knew. Danny said he saw him coming down the ladder and was yelling at him to get his brother.  Stew said that he had not said anything, that Stew had rolled him over and given him CPR and tried to save him, given up and thought he was dead. He left Danny to try and save his brother Bruce. Danny was without oxygen for 7-8 minutes, this is a lot longer than the human brain can live. He doesn’t know if there is a medical reason he is here.

The Second Chance Story came after that because he went into a dark place, he wouldn’t let anyone help him, he was experiencing Survivors Guilt.

The Turn Around Point

Take us to the moment in time of an incredible turnaround point you’ve experienced and tell us the STORY. We’ll explore the steps you took or the faith you used to walk your journey.

He came out of a bar after drinking way too much, went into a phone booth and phoned his Mom. She asked him when he was coming home and said they couldn’t wait to see him.  This changed his life direction. He had made plans to engage in an act of self-destruction and be done with it all. With tears in his eyes and a lump in his throat he told her he would come in a few days.

Something inside him shifted and he asked a question, “I wonder what it’s gonna be like when I get better?”

He got up the next day and began to make the trip to see his Mom, it wasn’t all better but it was certainly the turn ar...

Today on Mindset Monday I speak with Jiaying Zhao about the Scarcity mindset and how it impacts everyone. She brings her own story about growing up in China living in an area experiencing poverty and tells us that is has led her to dedicate her life to researching and helping some of the most vulnerable and poor people. She shares her lens on this topic as well as some research and statistics from her work.

Meet Jiaying

 

Jiaying has her PhD in Cognitive Psychology and is an Assistant Professor for the Department of Psychology at UBC. She is a Canada Research Chair (t2) in Behavioral Sustainability. She belongs to the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability. She loves her work of research, supervising students, research projects, teaching, and service.

On The Synergy Mindset Podcast, she takes us back to the beginning of her story and shares about her life growing up in China. She tells us she grew up poor and had intimate experiences in her family and in society at that time. Her family got out of poverty and she was able to pursue an education in Canada.

She was interested in poverty because of her personal experience and when she was in graduate school, one of her Ph.D. advisors was working on poverty. Jiaying jumped on board immediately because it was a personal interest and passion of hers since childhood. They wanted to understand what makes the poor poor and for the last decade have been investigating a psychological cognitive explanation of the behaviors of low-income individuals.

Scarcity Mindset is a condition of not having enough or the feeling of not having enough. This can be money, time, calories, pretty much anything. It is experienced by pretty much everyone in the world.

When someone is feeling scarcity they begin to tunnel their resources. They focus only on the task at hand and can end up making poor decisions due to a lack of seeing the big picture.

Jiaying uses the example of money scarcity and how people borrow money, such payday loans, with high interest to solve the moment's problems. They neglect everything else and those other things are equally important. This is a cognitive phenom.

There are other scarcity mindsets. There are social driven ones as well. In society, we tend to view low-income individuals as lazy or not-competent and it is most of the time, unfair and not true. The poor suffer a lot of stigma because of their poverty identity. Therefore, a poor person may be worried about how others view them based on the perception that they know the average person will view them. These are mental burdens on the poor.

It uses cognitive resources and the worry has effects. This constant worry reduces IQ, decreases performance and testing, When Jiaying grew up in China in the 80's everyone was poor therefore she experienced equality. Here in Canada, we have inequality of super-rich to all ranges which causes even more of a stereotype.

We need to change the public perception of the poor and there are several initiatives on the way. 

Self-fulfilling Prophecy

A vicious cycle, the person perceives the stereotype is true about them, therefore, acts with behavior that is destructive or will be in ways to confirm the belief and ends up becoming the person that the stigma projects. It can be broken by realizing the stereotype or belief is not true. This is how we can begin to dissociate the situation from the individual. The individual can change their belief about themselves and therefore change their behavior.

Policymakers can help make a difference as well. Jiaying has met with leaders to discuss how the government can help by increasing the overall income for low-income people. She suggests that we look at the impact the cash incentives will have on a person and what their individual needs...

Have you felt the pain of losing someone that you love followed by the frustration of thinking about how difficult starting over would be? Post Traumatic Growth can show up from failed relationships. If you are hurting or keep repeating the same cycle of relationship- single- relationship tune in to this podcast interview with Katrina Goff.

 

Katrina Goff, CAPP, CRT, is a positive psychology practitioner, and a certified resilience trainer, licensed to facilitate the Bounce Back Better(R) system, a Flourishing Center Program.

Katrina spent the majority of her career working in Health Care and with the Military. She came across the term, Post Traumatic Growth in a Psychology class she was taking and was able to share it with several service members in active duty over the years. It gave them some hope, and she could help them to see a different side of life other than just Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

She is passionate about helping people have happier and healthier relationships and helping people see there is something else outside of just being stuck in the trauma of a situation, that you can find good in situations and you can have maybe a different life than you anticipated but that it can be even better than you dreamed.

Mindset

It's all about how we choose to look at things and really being aware of the thoughts that come into our minds and what we do with them.

Sometimes we are getting something out of holding into trauma and are not ready to let it go. The longer we entertain a negative or painful thought the quicker it will pop back into our head. We have automatic thoughts and we have the power to take control over it, we do not have to entertain them.

We may not have had control over the initial situation but what we think and feel about it is definitely in our control.

PTSD

We often think of war, a serious illness, death of a loved one, rape or anything traumatic but when we think about a failed relationship that can be one of the most traumatic events that ever happen to us in our life.

We have invested our time, our heart, our mind into believing we are going to have that relationship forever. Perhaps that person is your best friend and you never imagined not having them in your life. Due to some circumstances regardless of fault, it can be debilitating.

We can want to lay in bed and our thoughts can focus on the negative like how our life will never be the same and that we won't have it back again. These thoughts don't lead us forward.

Post Traumatic Growth (PTG)

When we can see it and know how it shows up we can build more of it into our lives. One way that it shows up for Katrina is in Spirituality. Knowing she has a Heavenly Father that loves her and being part of something bigger than herself is very important to her. She knew when she was hurting that she was never alone.

She tells us that when our heart feels it is breaking we tend to want to isolate ourselves and we feel we are the only person that ever felt that way but we are not alone, everyone feels this way and have had a heartbreaking experience.

Meaning - I can make an understanding of what happened and expect that something is going to be better in the future because of it.

We are meaning-making creatures and want to figure out what we learned so we can share it with others. PTG comes from asking questions such as, What was my part in that breakup, what did I miss? How can I help other people?  It is hard to do but if we don't get to the heart of this, we can end up in that repeating cycle of relationship, single and heartbreak or we never believe we can have it.

Purpose - Future focuses, What am I going to do with that info that came from meaning?

What gifts, skills,

Hello, welcome back to Synergy Mindset's Podcast, bringing you inspiration and strategy for your personal and professional growth. Today I am sharing a story of how I failed at my plan of running the Boundary Bay Marathon and the Mindset Shift that I was able to achieve to run the 5 K with my son and then make a new plan.

Today I am sharing my story to equip you with the tools and in hopes, it may inspire you in a time of frustration or feeling as if you failed. I first discovered this quote on the side of the fridge at my daughter's high school and it has become one of my favorite.

The dream to run a marathon began in 2009 when I signed up for my first Sun Run training clinic. At that time, I was about 38 lbs overweight and smoked about 1 pack a day of cigarettes. My Grandmother found out she had cancer and died about three weeks later. When she was in the hospital she gave me a check for Christmas. I told her I couldn't even think about Christmas and that I wanted her to get better but she insisted I took the check.

That check and the wake-up call of Cancer was great motivation and meaning for me to make a change. I used the money to purchase the Sun Run training, learn to run your first 10k.

At that time, I did not think it would be possible to run 10k, it felt impossible. There were many challenges such as needing orthotics, finding out I was missing a bone in my foot, overcoming asthma and a case of plantar fasciitis and I did complete the training, quit smoking and lost about 40 lbs. When I crossed my first race day finish line I felt as if I could do anything in the world if I set my mind to it, I also felt like my Grandma would have been proud.

Then a few years later I began training for a marathon and was eating healthy, skipping on my work breaks, riding my bike to work and running all the time. I had a heart attack and went through the journey I have shared with you all before,  it was 18 months before I could run again.

Once again, I did the learn to run 10K training program and did another 10K run at The Vancouver Sun Run. I committed to running a marathon in 2017 in Victoria and was stopped in training by the forest fires causing my heart condition to flare up. Then again I committed to training for the Boundry Bay Marathon in November of 2018.

This time I took all the steps necessary,

I set a realistic timeline and found a course that was mainly gravel due to my foot pain and to prevent plantar fasciitis.

I purchased a training plan on how to run a Marathon and made a running schedule.

My doctor gave me her approval to run a Marathon.

I purchased a new pair of shoes

I got a pass at the gym and began to cross training my core.

I posted publicly on my facebook page that I was committing to run the marathon.

The training was going great and I was well on my way until the second year of forest fires came. The smoke was thick and they warned anyone with a heart condition to stay indoors. Despite the warning, I tried to train early, late and no matter what it causes such severe chest spasms that I had to quit running.

Next, I moved to a treadmill and within a week my foot began to throb. I had since begun my business and gym time was nearly impossible to work in.

My son was diagnosed with Autism and school went back in September. There was not a way I could see to make up for the training I had lost and I became discouraged.

I was being coached in business and this had come up. My coach asked me what I was struggling with the most and I shared the limited time I had to work, picking up, dropping off my son and being available if the school needed me.

My coach asked me why I had not shared that and I told her it was because I had feared my clients would see me as...

Mindset Monday with Doug Holt

 

What do you do when others think you have it made but deep inside you still feel like something is missing. You long for more than the life you have right now, what do you do?

Doug's Story

Back in 2007, Doug was one of the youngest business owners on the main street in Santa Barbara, CA. Owning an elite private training gym, a fitness magazine, and doing consulting for several companies. By all accounts he had it made... but he wasn't fulfilled. That's when Doug made a dramatic shift and began to ask the question: If you put down the last few years of your life into a book would it be a book you'd even want to read? Better yet would it be a page turner? If not, it's time to make a change and a change is exactly what Doug set out to make... and he did.

Meet Doug Today

He has been traveling with his family for 4 months. His 17-month son is his life and his goal and mission is to be the best possible husband and father he can be.

Doug wakes up in the morning and journals, gets some work done and then spends a lot of time with his son. He runs 6 companies and the journey he shares today is all about how he made his business run around his life and not the other way around.

The Journey

Doug grew up an entrepreneur and it started in Orange County California where he grew a garden in his backyard and sold the produce door to door. He has always been that way and gave a lot to charity. Two cornerstones in his life were Entrepreneurship and Philanthropy.

He was one of the youngest business owners and was running three business at the time. He ran a magazine, was consulting and ran a networking group that consisted of some celebrities and business people.

From the outside, he felt that something was missing and went to his mentor to share this. His mentor told him to, "buck up" and be happy with how lucky he was. It didn't sit right in his stomach so he went to a coffee shop and started writing.

The turn around point 

Doug asked a powerful question in his journaling, If someone followed him around for the last couple of years of his life and wrote it down, would it be a best seller, a book Doug would be interested in reading, a page turner? The answer shocked him, it was NO!

Doug took an honest appraisal of his life and noticed that he was stressed and that his time away from work was lonely. He decided he wanted to have a family and time to spend with them and when he consulted his mentor he was told that he couldn't have both.

Observing others, Doug noticed that others in the business world weren't happy with their family life and he knew he wanted to have both. I asked him how he overcame being given this advice, advice being given by extremely successful people in life and business, neighbors of Ellen and Oprah.

The Quest

He went on a quest that lasted about four years and attended seminars, had coaching and mentoring and took it all in. He started piecing it all together like a puzzle. He gamified it into where he could get wins and figured out how he could make his business work for him. He sold the studio that required him to be there in person and took his businesses online. It required a lot of hard work and utilization of processes and systems to make it successful.

He shared with his mentor and his mentor was very happy that he was able to create the life of his dreams.

The 90-day game plan

Doug created the 90-day game to help gamifie your own life. You an find it at https://www.the90daygame.com

Parting Words

 

Links 

DougHoltonline.com 

[email protected] 

www.linkedin.