Mission Wealth’s INSPIREDtalk with Dr. Elizabeth Lombardo: Surviving to Thriving

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if I could give you a magic wand that would improve your relationships and elevate your self-worth and happiness would you use it hi I’m Seth Streeter founder and chief impact officer at Mission wealth welcome to today’s inspired talk with our personalmagic wand Dr Elizabeth Lombardo today’s program will last 60 Minutes this includes 20 minutes for Q a and it will be recorded so we’ll be able to send you back a playback list as well as a summary of Dr E’s top ideas from today’s program we want this to be meaningful for you so please post your questions into the Q a button at the bottom of your screen Dr E is America’s most trusted celebrity psychologist with over 100 National media interviews including the Today Show Good Morning America Dr Oz The Wall Street Journal and many more she has spoken twice on the tedx screen and as a keynote speaker for many major corporations including Coca-Cola Deloitte and Zappos Dr E has her PhD in Clinical Psychology and she is a noted author her books include a happy you better than perfect get out of the Red Zone transform stress to optimize true success and her new

release is raising purpose-driven children something I know all of us parents are excited to learn more about NBA great Shaquille O’Neal calls her his head coach for happiness Dr E and Mission wealth have something in common we are both in the business of growing our wealth and our worth and her specialty is helping people grow their self-worth in order to live happier lives with greater purpose and fulfillment I hope you’re ready to learn some powerful insights from an incredible teacher please join me in welcoming my friend Dr Elizabeth Lombardo very much I’m going to share my screen as soon as I can and then we’ll get started as soon as I can share my screen there we go awesome um I think well let’s see here all right sorry about that we call that a better than perfect opening okay so today we’re here to talk about going from surviving to thriving discovering your best self now I don’t have to tell you that the past year and a half has been a little bit different for many of us and for some of you it may have brought about some challenges some transitions for others of you that may have brought about some really

quality time um with loved ones what we want to talk about today is is really how to discover and apply your best self um and so my goal for you for us is that you each create your own action plan to discover your best self right I’m going to give you information I’m going to share with you uh the latest in the research I’ll share with you some stories my hope is that not only will you be educated and entertained but also inspired to say how can I apply this in my specific life now um I grew up outside of New York City I tend to speak really quickly but even with that I have a lot of information I want to share with you um and so for those of you who want more information before we finish I’m going to let you know how you can get a gift from me to you to continue this process so um what I’d like to do is use a paradigm that I call true success the true success formula to help discover your best self um and you know it’s interesting Seth was talking about how we we have similar approaches I met Seth online not in that way um he had written a wonderful article for CNBC about just the the holistic approach to wealth

which has been my focus for for many many many years um certainly from a different perspective as I’m the psychologist and he’s a wealth manager amongst many other um Specialties that he has but we both really have that same that same vision of of of a holistic approach to our well-being which includes our finances which includes our relationships which includes our emotional well-being and this is it’s those last two that we’re going to focus on today so the true success formula is something that I created after working with clients for I used to say over two decades but really we’re we’re getting to about 25 years now um and it’s really based on the notion of how Society defines success um a certain job title looking a certain way certain amount of money that’s not true success a typical client with whom I work will be what I would call successful on paper and yet they come to me asking is this as good as it gets is this as good as it gets and and the answer is always no it can get even better so that’s the beauty but this is how I created what I would call true success and true success has three

variables it’s passion purpose and people so we’re going to look at this um Paradigm in terms of discovering your best self so let’s start with passion and when I talk about passion I’m not talking about romantic love although it certainly could include that but what I’m talking about is really it’s positive emotions right it’s being in a state of gratitude focusing on on what’s going well but it’s also being realistic that not everything’s going well and so when we have challenges in our life when we have issues that are occurring that we don’t necessarily want when we are in a state of passion we view them from a place of empowerment okay here’s here’s here’s an issue and I’m empowered enthusiastic to make a positive change now passion is in sharp contrast to distress and distress is determine psychology um it’s a catch-all term in Psychology pretty much any emotion you don’t want goes in that distress pile right so it could be sadness anger frustration guilt shame worry fear overwhelm that all goes in the distress pile and when we have high distress our passion elements and when we have lower distress we can have

higher passion so it’s really about these whether you’re in a state of passion or distress it’s really about what you’re saying to yourself right that that internal dialogue of your inner critic your internal dialogue that’s saying not nice things if your inner critic is taking over it’s going to impact how you feel and what you do right so if your inner voice is saying you’re a loser that’s going to elicit different emotions than I believe in you right it’s our inner voice that determines what we do there’s no way I’m going to get the job not even going to bother versus maybe I can let me give it a try so it really our our entire well-being starts up here I would say um what goes on up here impacts everything that goes on out here and thinking about this in terms of what we’re saying to ourselves makes me think of an experience I have when I was doing my postdoctoral training it was at Parkland Hospital in Dallas Texas Major Medical Center trauma center and it was my role to help people who came in often through the ER because of a trauma or an accident that they had that they had experienced I didn’t deal with the blood

and all but I was there to help them cope with psychologically cope with what what they were facing and I had a particular client who will call Roger and Roger was an electrician he was an electrician who was working on a wire That was supposed to be inactive unfortunately for Roger it was quite active such that when he touched the wire a volt of current went through his body and burnt him so severely that the doctors gave his wife the following option we can let him die or we can surgically amputate his arms and try to save his life so the decision was made to surgically amputate his arms and I remember distinctly going to see Roger and I had a a white coat on and I had my my clipboard trying to look all official so pretty pretty young back then and and right before knocking on Roger’s door I remember thinking to myself how am I going to help this guy obviously he’s feeling depressed and helpless and hopeless how am I going to help this guy now in the spirit of full disclosure this is not what you want your string thinking when she’s coming to see you but this was early in my career so this

is where I was and I knocked on the door and heard a muffled come in and when I opened the door there was Roger he was sitting in a chair dark brown hair dark bushy mustache she was wearing one of those bluish grayish hospital gowns that no one looks good in um and he had a smile on his face and I thought wow not only is he feeling depressed and helpless and hopeless but he’s also delusional but here’s the thing he wasn’t delusional right he was quite aware that his arms were not going to be growing back he was smiling because he was in a state of passion he was the state of passion because he was so incredibly grateful that his life had been saved and he had a firm firm conviction that it had been saved for a positive reason that he was still here on this Earth to do positive things he didn’t even know what they were but he was excited about he was enthusiastic and he was empowered and that mindset not only impacted of course how we felt but also what he did right with that mindset you can imagine that going through things like physical therapy and and and and working towards the goal to become independent was very

very strong so what we say to ourselves is what impacts how we feel and what we do and and here’s the thing you’ve probably heard the saying um don’t believe everything you hear right don’t believe everything you hear you the news the internet don’t believe everything you hear I would contend don’t believe everything you hear between your ears um scientists suggest that we have 60 000 thoughts racing through our minds every single day and very rarely do we stop and assess well how accurate and helpful are those thoughts and even so those thoughts impact us and the majority of those 60 000 thoughts are what we would call subjective there are interpretations our our uh perceptions our assumptions are beliefs the majority of our thoughts are not fact based and one of the things that can cause us to have more distress and less passion is something called a cognitive distortion cognitive just means thinking Distortion means it’s it’s it’s skewed it’s inaccurate right if you take someone else’s prescription glasses and put them on you ever done that yeah and what do you see it looks fuzzy right and why is that because it’s

distorted so there’s certain ways that we as humans tend to think in distorted ways often without realizing it that can impact how much distress we have or how much passion there are many distortions because I only have 40 minutes to get as much information as possible I’m going to share with you two main ones negative filtering in negative filtering you focus almost exclusively on what’s wrong and fail to notice what’s right and a great example of this is in a relationship when you have strain in your relationship I’ve talked to a lot of people especially during lockdown pandemic the notion of have I married you for dinner not breakfast lunch and dinner um so whether it’s your partner a loved one a colleague focusing on what’s wrong when we focus on what’s wrong with our lives with an individual that is what impacts our view right so we think about what’s wrong we feel more negative so we think more about what’s wrong and we feel more negative and it becomes this downward spiral so if you’re noticing yourself focusing only on what’s wrong the opportunity is to just broaden that perspective and ask yourself what’s

right that’s right and I as Seth mentioned I wrote a book called a happy you your ultimate prescription for happiness in there I have something called the happiness Challenge and the happiness challenge goes like this when you are in a situation that is bringing you heightened levels of distress you’re feeling more distressed your opportunity your invitation is to identify three things that are going well right so let’s say you’re stuck in traffic and you want to get home and you you know there’s nothing you can do and it’s feeling frustrating that’s what you’re focused on the opportunities to say okay yes I’m stuck in traffic and yes I’d like to be home and yes it’s uncomfortable what are three things that are going well well one I’m safe right I’m safe in my car too I’m the only one in my car so I get to control the radio and decide what music I I listen to three maybe you want to listen to an audiobook that you haven’t listened to or you’re going to use hands-free of course your phone to call a friend you haven’t talked to in a while in a while so instead of just focusing on what’s wrong you’re also looking at

what’s right that’s one Distortion negative filtering another common Distortion is shooting all over yourself do you do that I should I should be healthier right I should I should know what I want to do in this next phase in my life or shooting on others right he should be more supportive she should be kinder have you ever played um charades right so this is my this is my theatrical rendition of the word should right should is a it’s a big finger wagging at you and if you shoot on yourself we tend to feel guilt and shame which gives us more distress which makes us think more negatively right when we should on others we tend to feel resentful and angry which makes us focus more on their negative right and then interact with them in a negative way so the opportunity here is when you hear yourself shooting on yourself or when you hear yourself shooting on others not just outside but inside because a lot of times as I point this out to my clients they start to notice just how prominent that word should is in their mind should Keeps Us in distress right should is that is a judgment word so in order to

go over to Passion you simply change your should to would like I would like and this will help you not only feel better but will help you interact with others so example if my husband was um uh I I don’t know after dinner went and sat down on the couch to relax and I’m thinking well he should help out with the dishes then that anger and resentment can stew and it can come out in less than Pleasant ways right but if I change that should to would like I would like him to do the dishes then that’s going to motivate me to be in a state of passion and problem solving so I might say something like honey do you know how sexy you look when you’re doing the dishes right so being more assertive and getting what you want so just change that should to would like and it’ll get you out of that distress and into passion now when we’re talking about distortions we tend to think in more distorted ways when we’re in higher levels of distress and when we’re higher levels of distress we tend to think in more distorted ways so if you think about distress as being on a continuum from zero to ten right zero is no

distress at all you just got off the massage table life is great and 10 out of 10 is the most distressed you could be so if you’re angry for example you have the proverbial steam coming out of your ears or you might be yelling or screaming hopefully hopefully you don’t spend a whole lot of time at 10 and you’re probably not at zero a whole lot either so just ask yourself right now what number are you on this distress scale right now and if you would be so kind just put it into the the chat box and as I say that about the chat box feel free to um put you know as we’re talking I’m going to ask you different things to put in the chat box you can also use that q a box if you have any questions because we will get to those later so just make sure this is for you so I want to make sure that that you’re getting the most out of this so only you’ve come up with a number now and what you’ll notice is your distress varies over the course of the day right according to maybe who you’re with right um what you’re doing your physiology have you ever heard of the term hangry yeah have you ever been hangry I’m

putting two hands up there right so when we’re hungry we tend to be more Angry um and and so there are different variables that impact our level of distress again the higher distress we have the lower passion we have but the other thing to consider is that when we are at high levels of distress we actually think differently our brain functions differently than when we’re on low levels of stress so when you’re in low levels of stress what I call that green zone that zero one two three you’re using more of your frontal lobe right that that beautiful structure that differentiates you from other animals it allows you to engage in executive functioning problem solving perspective taking right when we’re in the green zone we can see all options so yes I’m facing challenges but I believe in myself I I believe I have hope I know that things can get better as we go up on this distress scale however our Focus starts to narrow so that when we get into the Red Zone the seven the eight the nine the ten we’re focusing on what’s wrong that negative filtering right when we’re in the Red Zone we tend to to blame other people we

tend to personalize what other people do and say uh that if your partner or loved one did something in the green zone and you’re like it’s just who they are they can literally do the same thing when you’re in the red zone and you have a different reaction right and and there’s a biological reason for this because when you get into the Red Zone when I get into the Red Zone our limbic system hijacks our rational thinking right that limbic system that that fight or flight that emotional reasoning that survival mechanism and it hijacks our thinking from being completely rational not that we’re completely rational green zone but even even less rational it’s kind of like if you ever know someone who had too much to drink and they have a thought um and the thought at the time makes a whole lot of sense until they wake up the next morning and they’re like no that really wasn’t accurate so it’s almost like your limbic system is getting a little a little drunk here and and and so because of that we don’t always think rationally I always tell my coaching clients if you were in the Red Zone a 7 and 89 out of ten don’t let

anything out of your mouth because that’s when we say things we later regret right and don’t put anything in your mouth because that’s when we consume things we later regret so when we’re in the Red Zone we think more negative we feel like a victim of our circumstances we tend to feel stuck which reminds me of this video

well that’s not good I need this I’m already late somebody will come anybody out there do you have a phone foreign somebody hello [Applause] there are two people stuck on an escalator and we need help now with somebody please do something [Applause] I don’t believe it kidding me that’s it all right so were they in the red zone or the green zone just put that in the chat box you think they were in the red zone or the green zone all right they’re in Redstone right and how do we know that to be true because because their mind was so focused on what’s wrong what do they need to do to solve their problem take four steps up right and it would have been just fine that’s what the Red Zone does to it it prevents us from really functioning the way that we want to it prevents us from being our best self so here’s a question though what if instead of being stuck on an escalator that’s an easy solution what if you’re stuck on an elevator let’s say you’re stuck on an elevator and you start you start really freaking out you start you start having a panic attack or feeling really stressed out what could you do

what could you do and this really calls to mind the notion that there are always always two different strategies that we can look at when we’re dealing with a problem when we’re dealing with a challenge an obstacle any situation that we don’t want in our lives and those two strategies are problem focused and emotion focused problem Focus means changing the problem itself and emotion Focus means changing our emotional reaction to it so problem focused if you’re if you’re stuck on an elevator elevator uh might be calling 9-1-1 right or hitting the alarm button problem Focus might be taking some deep breaths uh calling a friend to calm you down right uh grabbing your phone and watching a video to help distract you and the beauty of emotion focus is one sometimes we can’t change the problem two it feels better right emotionally we feel better when we just decrease that distress but the other thing is once we get out of that red zone we’re better able to solve the problems and I’m going to give an example in my personal life of this notion of problem versus emotion focused coping um to really help clarify

it so my husband the love of my life I’ve been with him for over half of my life now seven years ago we went up to the Mayo Clinic and he received a diagnosis of ALS also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease prognosis three to five years and the uh doctor the neurologist literally said take him home to prepare that was the treatment plan that we got take him home to prepare so uh needless to say we were in the red zone for a bit right in a State of Shock and what and then we did what I am going to encourage all of you to do we asked a very simple question and the question was what can we do what can we do right we knew we knew what medical science said about this disease we were focusing what can we do and with that question opened up a lot of possibilities and we started with problem Focus problem focused coping so we have worked with um Talk top medical specialists around the country and and Globe to help them out at one point we um I gave him uh six IV antibiotics a day over 10 months and he started getting better and I started having this this this Vision in my mind of being on stage and talking about how

we had overcome ALS um unfortunately that’s not where the story ended and he he his disease progressed and for the past five years he’s been trached which means he has a hole in his neck he’s on a ventilator so he can breathe and he um he’s on a feeding tube and he’s um his status is declining so he’s completely paralyzed now he’s he’s um uh he has contractures which means his his hands are stuck like this so for us to hold hands this is literally how we hold hands um so so but we still ask that question what can we do and we’re moving away from the problem Focus because we can’t do much about the disease right now and focusing even more On Emotion Focus coping how can we enjoy this time that we have together right how can we really be present with with each other and with the family and that’s really where we’re focused on now in fact the other day um we were holding hands and he was sitting he sits in the family room and our daughters we have 15 and 17 year old daughters they were in the kitchen it’s a you know open concept and I don’t know how but they had gotten my husband’s um yearbook from high school and so

they’re going through the yearbook and and they’re you know different things have been written down and one of them was dear Jeff it was great to get to know you this year I can’t wait to get to know you better heart Laura and the girls are like Dad who’s Laura right now my husband is now uh paralyzed so he can’t speak but he has something called an eye gaze board an eye gaze board um the best way to describe it is it’s an iPad that instead of using your finger you use your eye gaze so the girls asked Dad who’s Laura and you can see he’s madly typing his response months and he hits the microphone that allows this whatever he wrote to to be verbalized and he hits the microphone with his eyes and he says I was a stud so even during this really challenging time we can enjoy our time together so I invite you whatever you are facing whatever challenge you may be facing now or in the future always remember you are not stuck you are not stuck you have problem focused and emotion focused coping to help you and then the last part of passion is a picture of a hot tub why do I have a picture of a hot tub um dealing with

change can be challenging right and making new changes if you’re going through a transition if if something if you’re if you’re living through a change right now change can be difficult but I have something I call hot tub syndrome hot tub syndrome goes like this if you ever put your foot in a hot tub and it’s too hot you take it right out right and then you put it in in and out and you kind of have this dance and eventually you might do that with both feet eventually you do with your whole body and and you’re in this water up to your neck and it feels so good why because you’ve acclimated to that change so if you are struggling with a a challenge or a change I invite you to remember hot tub syndrome but the more you go through this the easier it gets and the easier it gets for you to be in that state of passion so that was our passion now let’s talk about purpose now let’s talk about purpose and purpose really is about who you are your identity right A lot of people uh through the pandemic um have have had a change of identity when we go through transitions whether it’s retirement empty nest syndrome these um

can call for us to have a change in our identity but really being proactive in our identity a purpose has to do with meaning in life what is your meaning in life and it’s human nature to find meaning in life our goal is to find a meaning in life for you that’s important that’s meaningful um we all know people whose meaning in life is to be the biggest victim right you say wow so tired I just could not sleep last night and this is the person who says you can sleep last night I haven’t slept in three months right they’re the biggest they win they’re the biggest victim so that’s not the meaning we want in your life we want to find one that has true purpose for you it’s about how you spend your resources when we look at purposes about experiences what are you doing right are you spending eight hours on Netflix or are you having a a really meaningful conversation with a loved one there’s nothing wrong with Netflix but maybe a little less Netflix and a little more meaningful conversation purpose is about growth right there’s a saying if you’re not growing you’re dying so how can you grow whether it’s in your uh

professional life maybe having a certain goal your personal life learning something new trying something new and then contributions contributing to a cause that is greater than yourself former volunteering mentoring whatever it is when you combine these three that is how we cultivate our purpose it is also how you view yourself now when we talk about how to how you view yourself there’s a lot of talk especially in Psychology about confidence but I’m good about you know someone who is confident and well frankly kind of cocky right and if they are a part of this do not type their name in the chat and I’m just kidding but that’s not what we’re looking at what we really want to look at when it comes to how you view yourself is your self-worth and and instead of looking at High versus low self-worth it’s helpful to look at conditional versus unconditional software so let me go over what what each of these is conditional self-worth is in general what our society succumbs to it’s based on the board if if I believe in myself if if and only if certain external criteria are met and those criteria vary from person to

person it could be I believe in myself if I look a certain way if I make a certain amount of money if I have a certain job title you know defining yourself through our work um for some people if I get a certain number of likes on social media and it’s really based on how we compare ourselves to others or how others react to us it’s based on the notion of win lose if I win then you lose if you win then I lose right and this is really the basis if you’ve heard about the research out there that shows that the longer people spend on social media the more likely they are to be depressed right because they’re comparing themselves to other people and when we’re in a conditional um self-worth we tend to personalize other people’s actions this is where road rage comes from right you’re driving on the highway someone cuts in front of you and you think who do you think you are you think you’re better than I am here’s the thing they aren’t thinking of you right they’re not even thinking of you not because you’re not worthy of being thought of but because they’re on their own they’re in their own mind

space right so conditional self-worth really diminishes our purpose it really prevents us from living our best life so what I would encourage you to do is to focus on unconditional self-worth what is that it means you believe in yourself regardless not in a narcissistic I’m better than these people sort of way that’s very conditional but it’s very much based on your values when we’re in a place of win-win sorry when we’re in a unconditional self-worth we’re in a place of win-win we celebrate other people’s wins Rising tide lifts All Ships and it’s really welcoming it’s welcoming other people’s opinions it’s welcoming feedback because you’re operating from this this this place of the spirit of continuous Improvement I like who I am and I can just keep getting better so one way to to kind of figure out your values your sense of purpose is to do the exercise that we’re gonna do um so what I’d like you to do is I’d like you to identify someone you admire someone you can look up to and if you want to put their name in the chat that’s great um if you don’t that’s fine but just just come up with someone

you admire and then identify three characteristics about that person that you admire what are three things about them that you that you look up to right it may be um their sense of humor their sense of compassion their um their ability to focus right their focus on on health their their their family whatever it is just jot down three characteristics that you admire in that person all right you got those three now here’s the thing those three things that you admire and someone else are also three characteristics that you admire in yourself oh so good I’m gonna say it again what we admire in others we also admire in ourselves those values those characteristics and when we apply them in our own lives that’s when we have greater meaning that’s when we have greater purpose in our lives so what I’d love for you to do is to choose one of those characteristics just choose one of the three perfectionists are like which one doesn’t matter just choose one and then I want you to ask yourself how can I apply this one characteristic in my life today so if it’s um I don’t know if it’s resilience for

example maybe you’re going to stop procrastinating on that project and tackle it even if it’s just for 15 minutes if it’s Compassion maybe you’re gonna pick up your phone and call or text or depending on your age Snapchat a friend who’s going through a difficult time right one step and realize it doesn’t have to be a grand step if you chose compassion you don’t have to move to Africa and build water wells for three months right it could be something as something as simple as looking at the Barista in the eye and offering a sincere thank you right so go ahead and just jot down in the chat if you are so brave to do so what is that one characteristic that you admire let’s just see what what people are thinking wonderful and I can’t see the chat so but we’ll I will look at it um okay so that’s our purpose now let’s talk about people we are social beings and so how to optimize our relationships with others is really going to help us have our best life is going to help you be your best self so in order to do that what I’d like to do is share with you a principle um that I’ve created called the over under

principle and I created this after working with couples so now I’m a speaker I do uh coaching I used to be when I when I started with my degree in Psychology I was your typical strength had had the couch and I sometimes would work with couples who would come in and inevitably they would come in with um an argument in mind and it would go something like this one of the partners would share with me what what had happened from their perspective this is what happened and this is what was wrong and and I’d listen to the first partner and I’d think they’re totally right on this I can’t I can see that they’re right this person’s probably wrong again not what you want your strength to be thinking earlier in my career I don’t think like this anymore um then the next partner would give their side of the story same event right same argument and I’d hear their side of the story and I think well they’re actually right and and that was confusing to me how can they both be right so this is how people can both be right using the over under principle and the over under principle goes like this for every overt or outward Behavior

there’s a positive underlying motivation for every overt behavior that means whatever people do or say there’s a positive underlying motivation even if that overt behavior is not so positive so to to Really grasp this concept I think it’s easiest to start with our own behavior so let me ask you a question have you ever done something or said something that upset someone else of course you have right if you’re human that has happened have you ever um have you ever broken a law really what’d you do I’m just kidding um let’s say have you ever exceeded the speed limit right have you ever gone over the speed limit my guess is you have now here’s my question to you why did you exceed the speed limit did you exceed the speed limit because you don’t care about the well-being of others did you exceed the speed limit because you think that laws don’t pertain to you of course not right why did you exceed the speed limit because you were in a hurry you had to get somewhere maybe you were late for a flight you had to go pick up your kids and to go to the bathroom I don’t know what it was but even though

you broke the law your focus was on your positive underlying motivation such that if a police officer pulled you over you might be thinking in your mind yeah but yeah but I just got to get to this meeting or I gotta pick up my kids or I gotta go to my office so when we engage in a behavior we tend to focus on our own underlying positive motivation does that make sense so now here’s the difference when we look at other people’s behavior we tend to assume why they’re doing it and it’s not always positive so let me give an example um I was um I was at O’Hare I live in Chicago and uh this was before the pandemic I was flying out to the West Coast for speaking engagement the gate next to me was flying out to the east coast it was a flight to New York and it had been canceled I don’t know about you but I love people watching at the airport so a lot of disgruntled individuals and I’m kind of watching what’s happening and I see one particular gentleman who literally like you could see that proverbial scene coming out of his ears he was most likely at a 10 out of 10. and he goes up to the um to the gate agent and

um and starts yelling at her this is the second time today you cancel my flight have an important fly and she’s typing and typing and typing you ever notice how they type I I don’t know what they’re typing like just get a Mac you only need to click once but that’s another conversation so she’s typing and typing and typing and he’s yelling at her and she looks up and says sir I have no control over the weather now accurate statement but how helpful do you think that was not at all right that’s like telling someone in the red zone to just calm down never in the history of humankind has that ever worked in someone’s in the Red Zone but anyway so she’s telling him she doesn’t have control over the weather he is written and raving and people are looking and probably thinking something like well this guy’s kind of a jerk right and that may be what she was thinking so we’re looking at other people’s behavior and assuming that underlying cause what happened next is a great example of the over under principle the supervisor came over and excused this this gate agent and looks at this gentleman who is still ranting and

raving she looks him directly in the eyes and she said wow I’m really sorry that this has happened you have an important meeting to get to in New York let’s figure out how we can get you there as soon as possible what do you think he did he stopped yelling and why is this here’s an important concept people need to feel heard before they can hear right people need to feel heard before they can hear once she addressed his underlying positive emotion he no longer felt the need to convince her he was right he could be quiet and move on but what happens a lot of the time is we look at people’s overt behaviors they’re focused on their positive underlying motivation and so they’re not having the same conversation if you’ve ever been in a relationship where you feel like the other person doesn’t get you or maybe you have children and they probably at one point may have thought you didn’t understand them this is exactly why right there there’s a saying that the the only um something about the only truth in or the the only problem with communication is thinking that it actually occurs right this is why

what the gate which supervisor did was she empathized she addressed that positive underlying motivation and with that he felt heard and then the overt Behavior could change in this case it just went away right in a case with a loved one it may be if they’re doing something that you address their positive underlying motivation someone who’s frequently late it’s frustrating to you I understand that you’re late because you want to get things done at work before you come home empathize with them then you can problem solve at the same time it hurts my feelings when you’re late all the time so how can we address what your needs are getting things done at work while also having me feel loved and you being on time so that’s the over under principle um a couple more when it comes to people there’s a five to one rule maybe you’ve heard of the feedback sandwich when you give feedback you have a positive then a negative and then a positive when it comes to relationships it’s actually not a two to one it’s a five to one ratio for every one bit of feedback or quote negative things that you say to

someone to balance it out you actually need five positives um so consider that as you’re providing feedback if you’re you know engaging in in in difficult conversation that five to one ratio the five to one ratio doesn’t need to happen all at once right you don’t have to shower them with praise and then give the feedback this is really about feeling people’s emotional bank account right so so over the course of the the day the weeks the years doing saying positive things speaking in their love language to get that five up so consider the five to one rule and then just because you have doesn’t mean you should just because you have just mean you should what does that mean it means this is a time as you are really creating your best self to ask yourself what works for me and what doesn’t just because this is how I’ve always interacted with my children my grandchildren my friends doesn’t mean that you should continue for that and this is an opportunity to ask what are some New Traditions what are some new habits what are some new things experiences that you want to incorporate in your life now and moving forward so

that you can cultivate those relationships with people all right so we talked about passion purpose and people to help you discover and really be your best self I mentioned at the beginning that um if you are interested in more information I wanted to give you a gift so if you go to elizabethlombardo.com I’m Elizabeth Lombardo elizabeth.com antidote it’s the antidote to your inner critic right that that inner critic that inner voice it’s a 21 day program it’s free to you to allow yourself to continue what I would say rewiring your brain so that passion so that purpose and so that optimizing your relationship with people becomes your habit becomes your new normal so that you can not only discover your best self but be your best self and with that I would love to open up for questions and just hear what questions you all have thank you so much Dr E there are so many wonderful takeaways there for us uh please everyone start to post your questions we have a number that have come in but please post your questions in the Q a button at the bottom of your screen and we have an expert who can

help address them so let me just dive into some Elizabeth uh first one is any advice when we say what we would like or appreciate and the person doesn’t do it repeatedly so maybe you ask your kid to do something and they just don’t do it how do I stay positive when this is what’s happening yes uh excellent question I actually um when it comes to kids I actually started a company called Alibi elevate your mindset thrive in life and it is geared towards because I have two of them teens and parents and kind of how to have these conversations how to optimize mindset so I’m gonna I’m gonna address it specifically with kids but then it’ll apply to to other things too so first um especially with kids you know clearly communicate what it means of what you want example I would like you to clean your room my definition of a clean room I assure you is very different than my teen’s definition of a clean room so now we have clearly communicated in my house what I’m saying is everything that’s not Furniture must be off your floor so first Define what it is you really want because you may you may think it makes

sense but they may not have the same definition and then ask for um a commandment by when will this happen if you are a parent the beauty is you can let them know that this is part of living in the house right and there are consequences for not um and the consequences I would encourage would be rewards for doing it versus punishment for not because reward is really a more powerful strategy motivator um and so them if they don’t do it if your children don’t do what you ask them to do then the consequences ensue if it’s a partner um who you can’t necessarily have those consequences um remember the five to one rule so you want to make sure you’re filling their bucket um to ask figure out what their love language is because um even though you may be saying I appreciate it when you do that if their love language is not um is not words of affirmation they actually aren’t going to hear that love that you’re communicating to them so try to speak in their love language if it’s physical touch for example you might go up and and rub their back you know and say I really I really appreciate that

you um have you know offered or you’re willing to help me out with blah blah because that way they’re actually going to to feel the love and then the third thing is to reward reinforce highlight when they do what you want them to do so if you you have given a list of five things to do when they do one of them celebrate now you don’t have to like pop open the Dom but you do want to really acknowledge your gratitude for what they’ve done because when people hear it’s the example I gave up to you know how sexy look when you’re doing the dishes that is going to be more motivating than than someone yelling at their partner saying you never do that because that’s going to cause them to go away so really working um with praise and and reward for when they do something positive they’re more likely to do it again wonderful thank you we have some questions here on emotional resilience and how we can develop practices or routines in life to grow our emotional resilience and I’ve heard you know the importance of starting your day by making your bed then you know the rest of the day is a win or what are some

ideas you have for how people can grow their emotional resilience and their life with daily practices yeah so I was always going to be here in the red zone They had they didn’t have a lot of resilience right there um so staying out of the red zone is going to be really helpful um and and how do you do that well look at ways that help you stay out of the red zone for you it may be exercise I’ll say what it is for me I exercise and I meditate every day when I do those two things for me I can stay out of the Red Zone and even as my husband my husband is here we have 24 7 care even as I’m literally witnessing my husband die I can still be in a place of passion I can still be in a place of emotional resilience knowing regardless of what happens I can handle this so staying out of the Red Zone and and creating habits and practices for you that will allow you to do that will be very very powerful thank you Elizabeth we have a number of participants on the call today who are in retirement or nearing retirement and they’re thinking about this back half of life and the question is you know are

there any particular strategies that really apply to those people in this third phase of life and how they can improve relationships have find purpose you know their careers and being active parents are behind them uh any ideas for folks in that life phase applying the values that we’ve talked trying new things you know I I’m working a lot with with people kind of going going through that transition and they’ve been so used to being at the top of the game right that when I suggest a hobby they’re like well I’m not good at anything a hobby is not about being good at something it’s about enjoying something right it’s part of that that purpose of growth so trying new things whether it’s learning a new skill it’s taking on a new hobby it’s it’s it’s doing something different to enhance the variety in your life doing it on your own also doing it with people in your life so whether it’s cultivating relationships that you already have going for a walk with with a loved one going away that kind of thing or it’s it’s creating new friendships right and and how do you create new friendships sometimes people

say it’s easier when we’re in school to create new friendships it’s easier it’s it’s maybe easy but more at work to do that how do you create friendships when you don’t necessarily have those institutions that that are already there what do you like to do what are you excited about so for example volunteering for a cause about which you are passionate not only does that help you with that that contribution part of your own purpose but you’re going to find like-minded people who are also engaged in that activity so that’s how you can can really find like-minded people in term people who have similar interests with as you so that you can grow those relationships but it’s about prioritizing and it’s also about you know again that that notion of hot tub syndrome in terms of this is new and different and it may feel awkward and strange it’s supposed to feel awkward and strange right that’s that’s what that’s kind of the first state of change is that awkwardness and and maybe some discomfort but remember that the more you do it the easier it gets and the more that becomes your Norm we have someone here who’s 19 years old

who’s going to be starting as a freshman in college here in a month and he’s saying I want to make sure I get out of my comfort zone as I start my freshman year but I’m worried my shyness might keep me from you know developing those friendships so it’s kind of the same thing with folks in the back half of life but here’s someone who’s starting his college phase and a new state any guidance you give to a 19 year old who’s going to the dorms and kind of nervous about uh trying to meet a bunch of strangers and kind of getting a new chapter in life and how to do that with a little more openness yes I have many things that are coming to mind so so let me choose one first of all realize that shyness is caused by your inner critic oh my gosh they’re gonna make fun of me they’re not gonna like me you know what should I say I’m not going to know what to say and so that increases your distress and gets you into the red zone um so by changing what you’re saying to yourself it’s actually going to help you feel better one way to do that is what we call developing an alter ego so what’s an alter ego an alter ego is

someone who you it’s almost like you play the role of someone um and and you step into that role so there was a woman you may have heard of Sasha Fierce Sasha Fierce was an incredible singer on stage shaking her booty all over Sasha Fierce was actually Beyonce Beyonce started her career singing in the church and when she became a pop star going up on stage and and dancing that way and kind of putting it all out there was extremely uncomfortable for her so she created Sasha Fierce when she went on stage she was Sasha Fierce eventually and she has an album I forget the exact name but it’s basically there I don’t need Sasha Pierce eventually she has become that and so now she doesn’t need that Alter Ego she’s embraced that so my my recommendation is create an alter ego who would you be if you were comfortable right if that positive self-talk was was what was predominant in your mind and and what would they do how would they stand what would they think how would they interact with other people and then almost as if you were in a play adopt that role and start engaging with other people doing that

um it’s interesting if you look at actors a lot of actors are incredibly shy and Incredibly introverted And yet when they get on stage they can you know be be all that and so you can use that that technique yourself no one has to know and the more you do it just is with hot temp syndrome the more it will feel comfortable and eventually you won’t even need that Alter Ego that’s great so we’re the director the producer and the lead actor in the movie of our life absolutely and wonderful exactly it and the writer so that’s what we’re talking about of creating the best you wonderful all right we have a question here uh the tools or skills to improve my thinking or self-talk when it is negative to change those familiar Pathways of thinking so if someone kind of has that habit of being the self-critic which many of us are how can we change that pathway of thinking yeah so I have something called BFA best friend advice and it goes like this you want to write down what you’re saying to yourself remember we have 60 000 thoughts that are all all going on right here we don’t always know what we’re saying

to ourselves but we know how it makes us feel so take it from your head put it on paper okay so you’re writing down everything that’s going through your mind all those self-critical thoughts and then what I want you to do is I want you to consider if your best friend came to you saying this I’m no good I totally messed up I’m a failure if that is what your best friend said to you how would you react to them would you say you are a failure and let me just remind you not just this time you messed up but let me remind you of those five other times just recently when you messed up no you would never say that to your best friend that’s what we say to ourselves that in a critic but we would never say that to our best friend what would you say to your best friend you made a mistake you can grow from this right you think of all the other times you’ve been successful he think of your values you’re a good person they would focus on your positive so be your own best friend and rewrite once you’ve written out what you don’t want to say rewrite what you want to have in your mind and then re-read that because the

notion is to rewire our brains every thought we have are just nerfying in a certain pattern you did not come out of your mama’s womb thinking you weren’t good enough or you couldn’t do this or you were a failure or whatever that inner critic does that is all learned and anything learned can be unlearned and relearned so writing out what you want to believe and then repeating it over and over and over again will help you internalize it it’s almost like a song you hear on the radio right you listen to a song over and over and over again and eventually you can internalize it you have to listen to it you could be in the shower and you can be singing it so that’s the kind of mechanism we want to do in order to rewire your brain wonderful here’s a question any advice on managing relationships when you’re living or working with narcissists the first thing is self-care get yourself out of the Red Zone identify your triggers right a trigger is something that went whatever that what that person does or says it gets you into the Red Zone identify those triggers and deactivate them a trigger is only a

trigger hear me say this a trigger is only a trigger if we let it be a trigger we and only we have the power to deactivate that trigger so what does that mean it means when they do something that tends to upset you don’t personalize it people are not who are narcissistic often this is a great example of that conditional software if we talked about they put other people down to feel better about themselves right do you know where I went to college right do you know how great I am they put other people down to feel better about themselves so if you can see them for what they are if when they do something or say something that used to upset you you cannot personalizing and see it as as truly on one level of very very sad attempt to feel better about themselves then that can Empower you to deactivate those triggers the other thing to consider is keep in mind this person has to be with themselves 24 7. be grateful you do not right you are not in their mind 24 7. so so that goes back to that self-care when you are if you have to interact with them um before during and after a dress or stress before you have to interact with

them even if it’s all day if you’re working with them while you’re with them have something where you can focus on something you can take a break get away from and after have a carrot dangling once something is this conversation with this person then here’s what I’m going to do I’m going to call a friend I’m going to watch a funny video on on YouTube I’m going to take a couple breaths I’m going to go for a walk so so really look at your own stress level because when you get into the Red Zone it’s hard to deactivate those triggers right we have time for three more questions so feel free to put your last question in uh one of those three here is talking about finding purpose in context of having an overarching life purpose versus which can feel vague versus a more transitory purpose based on the phase of life you’re in so if you have young kids or if you’re busy in your career overarching versus kind of uh you know incremental purposes and and all of them are important right over about it’s too overbearing it’s too Global just focus really on what your purpose today which purpose is weak and

what do you want it to be so even as even if you’re in the phase for example of a parent with younger children one of your purposes is to be a good parent what else I highly encourage that we find purpose not only um through other people our role with other people but also on our own so looking at other opportunities um of how you can apply those values that are most important to you that exercise we did that um choosing that one thing how can you apply that in your life on a regular basis so again if it’s if it’s if you chose compassion as being compassionate with your kids but it’s also being compassionate with others being compassionate with wait for it wait for it yourself which a lot of times I will say um especially when I’m working with women they’re very compassionate with others but forget to provide that same that same love to themselves so I wouldn’t worry so much about that grand purpose just focus on right now what do I want my purpose to be and how can I apply that in my life thank you uh last question here is around a couple ideas for how we can raise purpose-driven children for us

parents here how well couple ideas how can we do it the number one thing is modeling if if a video camera was following you around 24 7 would you be pleased with what they were watching because here’s the thing our kids they may listen to us but they’re really watching us they are watching us and absorbing what we are doing if we are consistently on our phone if we are talking about people in a negative way you know um gossiping they’re going to be watching it they’re going to be absorbing it so modeling is key and in fact what I’m working with um with teens a lot of times I’m also helping parents realize not because they’re bad parents but because they aren’t realizing how their interactions are impacting their children um another great thing to do I encourage is for all people especially teens is volunteer have help your children find a cause that is important to them it may be working with kiddos it may be um the environment it may be um animals look for opportunities for them to contribute to a cause greater than themselves because what that’s going to do is want to help some enhance

their purpose in life but it helps them also see um my life isn’t necessarily the life that everyone else has and it gives it helps us have this this place of gratitude and when we help out others not only do we help them but we always help ourselves feel happier true happiness not just you know this is a great chocolate chip cookie kind of happiness but but true happiness within ourselves so volunteering uh have your child volunteer volunteer as a family a great thing to do totally agree but I would say chocolate chip cookie happiness is a real thing [Laughter] Dr e um you’ve inspired us you’ve given us really great uh impactful ideas that we can apply I love the over under principle I love being mindful of getting out of the Red Zone uh and just being able to really be intentional and how we’re living our lives with greater purpose so thank you so much I would encourage everyone to check out her website which we’ll put into the chat I encourage you to take advantage of her 21 day uh free uh let go of your inner critic resource there and we will be emailing you a copy of this program so

feel free to share this with your friends anyone who could benefit from maybe getting out of the Red Zone forward it over and then also we’ll be sending you a highlight of kind of the top takeaways from today’s program we wanted to ask everyone to please fill out the survey that we’ll be sending you because your feedback’s really important for us and we’ll be sharing that feedback and I’m happy to also announce our next inspired talk so Elizabeth has done such a wonderful job in October we have of Dr Victor Rios who’s coming Dr Victor Rios is a PhD he’s a professor at UC Santa Barbara he’s an author he’s also a former gang member and high school dropout and he’s going to be sharing his powerful personal story and how we all can play a role in helping those kids who’ve been left behind so this is not going to be a program to miss we’re putting in the chat right now a link so you can get registered for that program in October and we’d also love to have you join us for our other inspired living programs we have our wisdom shares where we crowdsource best ideas for how to have more abundance

across these 11 dimensions of wealth we have conversation circles a more intimate conversation around topics I covered today and please reach out to your financial advisor and he or she’ll be happy to share with you more about those programs and at this time we’re going to disconnect we hope you have a wonderful day and thank you again Dr Elizabeth Lombardo [Music] foreign