OSR 011: Leadership, Passion, & Time Management, With Rae Luskin

http://winningadventure.com/visioning-and-goal-setting/

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You’re listening to Operation Self Reset: Changing the Person You Are to the Person that You Want to Be.

What is going on, resetters? This is Operation Self Reset, podcast number 11. First off, I just hope all you guys out there had a great 4th of July weekend, week, whatever it was. I was up north in Wisconsin hanging out with family. It was some great weather and I have a lot of nieces and nephews. And I want to share a million, billion dollar idea with the inventors out there or the people that like to fiddle with stuff. I was sitting hunched over by a garden hose for literally 40 minutes filling up 100 water balloons, and my back was killing me and I was cursing up a storm. There has to be a better way. So if you guys out there have the time, I’m kind of busy with the podcast and inspiring you to take action, so maybe this will inspire you to take action. If you could make an automatic filler-upper and tier, water balloon device, I would be the first person in line buying that sucker because as we all know water balloons are fun as heck to throw, but they take forever to fill. It’s such a simple, simple thing to do—fill up a water balloon, tie it off, bam! You’ve got yourself a portable squirt gun on the go. The fun that you have with a water balloon is awesome. The best part is is when you’re trying to throw it and it breaks in your head, yeah, that’s always a good one, so a little backlash. But anyway, it’s not about water balloon hour.

We’re gonna be talking about Rae Luskin. She owns a website called TheWinningAdventure.com. You guys can check her out. She’s gonna be talking about leadership, giving back, community service, finding your passion, your inner critic, talking to your inner critic, and time management. It kind of encompasses a lot of things that I personally want to hit on individually. I was kind of put in contact with her and I’m glad I was because she is very diverse in a lot of these different aspects and has some great little tips. Now, again, this isn’t a full, detailed report on how to find your passion from zero to 100, but it gives you a starting point, a little direction. So before we dive into the interview with Rae Luskin from TheWinningAdventure.com, I wanted to share kind of something that happened to me personally, today, this morning, and I thought it would be huge to share it with you guys out there because this happened to me very recently and I know you guys will get some benefit from it.

So long story short, I woke up, did my daily routine, all that stuff. Well, I went to the gym and when I was working out I was really feeling like just disappointed in myself. I just felt like this project Operation Self Reset wasn’t really going to go anywhere. I just felt like all the effort I’m putting into it and all the time and everything like that just wasn’t going to be worth it. And it was a really weird feeling because I knew within myself that I’m doing this for the good. I’m doing this because I have a craving for it. I’m doing this because this is my passion, but at the same time I just had that self doubt. And maybe was it a chemical imbalance in my brain that was released? Maybe. Was it because I didn’t get a lot of sleep because I have a newborn? That could be. Was it a lot of other things that are happening around me that just wore on me and I was just in a bad mental state? That could be, but I want to share with you guys what I personally did to kind of get out of that mental state. I know you guys out there listening have had this happen to you. Either once a day, once a week, whatever it may be, but what I did to really kind of pull myself back to reality, back on the game plan, back on the horse, saddle up, giddy up. [03:53]. That was my impersonation of a person on a horse telling their horse to go, so there you go.

What I did was when I got home, because I was driving home, I didn’t have the paperwork in front of me and I should. I keep on saying I’m gonna save this for some podcast of me telling you guys tips of how to stay motivated, but I keep reminding myself I should take a sheet of paper, write down my goals, and put it on my steering wheel. What? On your steering wheel? Yes, on the steering wheel. Why? Well, you’re looking at that sucker all the time. You’re driving all the time, all that stuff. I also thought it would be a great way for people that are just in financial ruin to mark down if they have a credit card of say $8,000, and they love going to Starbucks or they love just sporadic spending. That’s a great reminder. It’s right there in front of you. It’s written with your own hand. Ink on paper is a lot more personal than typing on your phone or something like that. So I always thought that would be a great little spot to kind of put a reminder note to yourself, either an inspirational quote, a little motivation statement, or something as in your face as a big bill from a credit card or something like that. It will help you kind of gain control of the situation.

Okay, again, going on a tangent. That’s the entrepreneur mindset of sporadic insanity that’s going on in the noggin up here. But anyway, what I personally did, I looked at my goal sheet. Now, I have multiple goal sheets. I actually have weekly, monthly, yearly goal sheets, and then I have lifelong goal sheets. And I went right for the lifelong goal sheet. I looked at it and I started going down 1-15 and like, okay, this is why I’m doing this. This is why I need to keep plugging away and all that stuff. So that really helped me get back in the saddle, get me back on page and allow me to sit here in front of you right now. I’m recording this at 11 o’clock at night while my child is sleeping, and I’m just pouring it out to you guys because I know you guys have the same problems. There are days when you wake up you’re just so disappointed. You know, it might be because you’re starting a new weight loss program and it’s just not panning out. You’re not seeing the results. Or it might be because you’re trying to find a new job and you’re just overwhelmed and you think, “Screw it. Just forget it. I’m going to continue to work at my lousy job.” Or you’re trying to figure out yourself and figure out, “What is my true calling? What am I here for?” And you are just finding dead ends. You’re reading book after book. You’re listening to me day-in and day-out on repeat. Amen to you if you are. And you just aren’t connecting the dots and you’re just frustrated. You throw up your hands and go, “That’s enough. I’m just gonna continue down the path of where I have been going.” You don’t want to go down your normal path. You want to change that. You want to reset it. You want a transformation of your own personal life. And that’s what I’m trying to instill in you.

So you guys need to have that kind of stake in the ground, that last little ditch effort if things are going awry that you just need to look back on and go, “Why am I doing this?” Whatever it may be, and you can kind of reflect and go, “Okay, yeah.” One of my big goals is to have my wife be a stay-at-home mom. That’s huge in my personal life. Everybody has a different goal, but when I saw that I would be like, “Yes. This is why I keep on moving and keep on trucking day-in and day-out.” So hopefully you guys got a little bit of information there of how to handle the times when you just have self doubt within yourself. It’s not so much your inner critic talking or your self-talk that’s wearing you down and telling you that you’re a lousy SOB. It’s more of you just feel like, “I’m not worthy. I don’t think this is gonna work out.” You’ve got to focus back on something and I personally focus back on my goals and that really helped me. So I would love to hear if you guys have something else other than a goal sheet. Is it a memento you got from a family member or a picture or was it a video? Or whatever it may be. It could be a stick, I don’t know. It may be a stick to kind of whoop you back into shape. That would be funny. So whatever it is, I would love to hear what your little fall-back-on device is and we can chit-chat about it.

So let’s move from self-disappointment to an interview that I think can solve a lot of issues that are arising in a lot of our lives. A lot of you guys have been emailing me. Thank you again so much. For the people out there listening, if you want to get in contact with me, ask me a couple of questions, you have issues going on in your life, you need more motivation, inspiration, a problem arose and you don’t know how to handle it, email me at support@operationselfreset.com. I will get back to you. I have gotten back to every email so far. I’m behind a little bit so I’m not gonna say I’ve gotten to everything yet, but I will be current at the end of this week. So now is the interview with Rae Luskin from TheWinningAdventure.com. All of the things stated on this podcast will be in the show notes. Feel free to access them at OperationSelfReset.com/podcast011. And here it is.

Welcome to the podcast. Rae Luskin is a speaker, author, artist, and activist. Rae supports individuals and organizations as they discover their passion, purpose, and authentic power. In her forthcoming book, The Winning Adventure, she brings together a remarkable collection of insights and wisdom from over 100 non-profit community and business leaders. Rae, welcome to the program. I appreciate your time, and how are you feeling today?

I’m feeling great. Thank you. I’m so happy to be here.

Good. Well, thank you very much and if you wouldn’t mind kind of diving into a little more about who you are and how did you end up with this platform that you’re on?

Well, okay, I’ll tell you I’m 63 years young as of yesterday.

Congratulations, happy birthday.

Thank you, thank you. I found myself over the years—I’ve always been a community activist. I was a volunteer and I started realizing in the last few years that I needed to talk about leadership because so many people I ran into said, “Oh, I can’t make a difference. Who am I? And how can I, one person, do something?” And I’ve always believed that we are role models at home. We all have a sphere of influence. We can be mentors at work or volunteers in the community and that is leadership. So I wanted to broaden that definition of leadership, and so I decided to dive in and it was sort of this little whisper in my head, “Just start calling your heroes.” And I did. One of the first calls I made and I tracked him down was, his name is Paul Kivel. He is a social justice educator. And he said, “Of course, I’ll do an interview.” And we started talking and then who do you suggest? And then one of my areas of expertise is in creativity. I am totally involved in creativity for healing, social justice, innovation, and leadership. So I contacted Mary Rockwood Lane who started the first arts and medicine program in a hospital in Florida. So again, it was those kind of things because I wanted people to see that you can have a big vision. You can go after it. It doesn’t mean you have to have a big position to do it. If you have a passion and you go after it, you can be a leader in whatever that arena is.
Perfect. Now, you talked about passion. How do you suggest people go about finding their passion? If they don’t know what it is or they’re interested in something but they don’t feel that’s something that they want to really dive into, do you have suggestions for them?

I do. Actually, I have something on my website called the Passion Inventory. It’s just a simple little thing. If you go to TheWinningAdventure.com and you look under Carry-Ons—cause that’s my freebies. I’m a travel person, so that’s why the metaphor.

Okay.

And you go there and you start with that because it asks you about what’s your favorite color? Sometimes we have to go back into childhood. What was your favorite activity? What was your favorite adventure in life and then you build up: what was your favorite job? All these things and you play detective and you start there and then you can go on and imagine what would be your perfect day? What would that include? Who would be in it? What activities would you be doing? So there’s a whole piece like that. I think that is a big piece of passion is asking those questions and really sort of going backwards and looking to the past to see what made you smile.

Yeah. For sure, for sure. Now you also speak very highly about leadership not only in the business world but in your personal life. Can you go off of that?

Sure. Leadership was something, I guess in my family, I’m Jewish and there’s a term called tikkun olam, repair the world. And I grew up with that as a motto, so it was always something my family presented. They were philanthropists in the community. They were activists at a hospital or my dad was the president of this. My mother was the president of this board, and so I always got that and I modeled that, and it became part of my own legacy. And so, you know, I was on my first board at 23. The president of a board at 25. And so that has always been part of it. And I recommend highly volunteering because you can hone your skills for business and life by being a volunteer, you know, and taking on those leadership roles and just diving in, and you learn so much about who you are and what a contribution you can make to other people.

Donating your time, you suggest just finding something that interests you, finding organizations around your community. How do you go about finding that?

Well, I would first of all ask what has touched you in your life? Has somebody been ill in your family? Is there a disease that is attached to someone that you love? So start with those kinds of questions. What’s important to you? Maybe it’s animals. My girlfriend doesn’t have kids, but she has three dogs and two cats. Animals are her passion, so she volunteers, like at a pet shelter. Those kind of things. She used to bring her pets to senior centers. So you can find what you love. What’s important to you? And put it all together. And you do. You start asking people, “Where would you volunteer?” because I think we get this idea you have to give money. It’s your expertise. So maybe you’re a copywriter. Maybe your expertise is in time management and you can go and help people do that. There are so many places that people need help. Bankers can go and volunteer at shelters and give women information on how to create a budget, how to take care of themselves. You know, how to get loans so that they can get out of an abusive situation. There’s so many places that we need, we can actually step up and be leaders.

Yeah. For sure. Now one thing that I know a lot of people are going to be listening to this and thinking to themselves, “Well, that sounds great. I always wanted to volunteer and stuff like that, but time management is just really so thin. I mean, I come home from work, I’m dealing with the family. I got this going on. I need to leave a little bit of time for myself.” Do you have any suggestions on how people can kind of organize their time management and figure out a game plan for the week or the month to allow other opportunities to come into their life?

There are two aspects of this. I think you can go and talk to your bosses at work because so many of them have a mandate for social connections and involvement in community and talk to them about planning a day where you volunteer through work. So instead of having to leave work, you take three hours of that work day once a month and you volunteer as a group. That’s one way to do it because there’s so many opportunities that you can do and get connected. The other is plan it as a family. Imagine what you can do as a family together to make a difference. You can go to the park and pick up litter for an hour one day and then your kids can stay and play. You know, there’s so many opportunities to give back that we forget about them because they’re so simple that we just sort of like ignore them. Oh, it has to be big. No, it’s the little things. It’s making cards, sending them to Veterans. It’s collecting pennies and donating it to your favorite charity. Even if it’s $5, so what? If your family did it together, it’s a gift.

Those are really good points and especially like you just said, [they’re 16:15] ask, you know, the worst thing that happens the boss or whoever says, “You know what? Maybe not this month but I’ll bring it up to the board and we’ll talk about it.” So the least you can do is get out there and ask and see if they can free a little more time for you. So that was a huge point.

And one other thing. Because you may be interested in going green, so maybe you talk to your boss about can we change the light bulbs? Can we get free trade coffee? So whatever you’re interested in, there are ways and opportunities to make a difference just by the ask, as you said. It’s the conversations we have. And even if you don’t do it at work in the sense getting your boss to change it. Tell your coworkers what you care about and maybe one of them will pick it up and say, “Wow! I never thought about that. I could do that at home.” Whether it’s recycling or whatever it is.

On your website, you talk about a little snapshot in time. You talk about time management. Do you mind indulging on that?

Oh not at all. I think it’s really important as we are so busy every day, every moment that we have to take the time to figure out where we are, and the activity snapshot in time really is like a pie chart, and I want you to sit down and figure out what’s your day like or your week. And then you’ll notice, “Oh, wow, I didn’t leave any time for my wife. All I’ve done is work for 60 hours or all I do is sleep and there’s no time for fun and adventure with my kids.” So we need to be balanced. We need to take the time to assess where we are so we know what we want to change.

Yeah. This is great information, especially for the podcast which about changing the person you are to the person you want to be, and if you guys are listening out there and need that extra couple of minutes and stuff this is a great resource. Make sure you guys go over to TheWinningAdventure.com and you’re able to kind of take these short, little surveys and figure out your true self. Another thing that you talked about just recently was making conversation with people. As I browse around your website and talking to you, you talk greatly about making sure you interact with one another. How does somebody go about doing that if they’re not comfortable? If they’re the shy person, if they’re not the outgoing one, do you have any suggestions for them to kind of get out of that little comfort space that they have and extend their hand to shake somebody else’s and get to know them?

Right. I think that they have to, everybody’s got something they’re afraid of and if we recognize that in each other, you know, a lot of people put on bravado: “I’m great. Everything’s wonderful.” But if you have a personal conversation with them and you own up to, like, “Gee, it’s not going so well. My kid’s got trouble in school or my parents are ill.” Those are conversations everybody’s got today. We’ve all got parents, and if you start there with something really personal, you’ll find that people respond in kind, that people want to know who you really are, you know. I mean we are a society that texts and so there is no eye-to-eye contact. We don’t stand there and shake hands anymore and I think that’s really important that we don’t forget that piece of it, so let’s have those personal conversations.

Yeah. That was a big point that you just made there. I actually made a podcast about that in the last episode about just going to Meetups or events, just getting out there and shaking people’s hands and getting to know them for who they are, and one thing that I’ve been getting emails about is that people are still very nervous about just going into a situation that they don’t know anybody. But at the end of the day, the people that are at those events, they want to meet other people. So it’s not like the total awkward conversation, you know, you’re in line at Starbucks and you’re gonna strike up a conversation with somebody. You’re going to these events and talking to people because they want to talk to you too. So you’ve got to always think about that in the back of your mind. Now, obviously, people have emailed you and contacted you about different ideas, for suggestions, and you contacted them about helping them out and mind maps and different ideas that you have. What is something that a lot of people contact you about that seems to be a recurring theme? Does it have to deal with self doubt or confidence? What is something lacking out there that people are always bringing up to you and what do you say to them?

Okay, I think the biggest thing is that inner critic. Everybody’s got this voice going on saying, “Who do you think you are? I’m not enough.” Those voices come out to everybody, from the top executives to the busboy. Everybody’s got those dialogues going on. So those are the pieces that pop up the most for me, and people are really concerned. You know, “How do I manage that? How do I change that voice? How do I change that story?” And I really think, again, just like we were talking about before about being shy, we need to reframe those stories and sort of go back to the first time that we heard this voice that said, “Oh, you’re not enough and sort of say, ‘Hey, that’s not true anymore.’” And start creating dialogues for ourselves. I believe in mantras, affirmations, whatever you want to call them. Having visual symbols that you can just sort of, “Oh, close your eyes,” you know, and imagine. That I love. Everybody’s got a super power. You know, I believe in Superman, Superwoman and all that. It’s fun and it sounds a little weird, but at the same time I tell you find a super pose for yourself. So before you’re going to those conversations and you’re going somewhere you’ve got to have the ask for or engage with people and you’re uncomfortable. Go in the bathroom. Imagine that, you know, how Rocky did where he raised his arms in the air and he spun around. You can do that. That can be your power pose, or, you know, put your hands on your hips like Superman. And that changes everything. It gives you a solidity, a base. It grounds you in power and we have to have those if we’re gonna go forward. You know, like you were just saying about when people are scared, if we can also think instead of, “It’s not about me. I’m not here to sell anything. I’m here to find out who you are and create a relationship,” then that changes it too.

Oh, for sure. You spoke of not selling anything. I guess we as a society are so used to just getting sold upon. Any encounter that we meet, in our email to our personal mail, physical mail, text messages sometimes we get, it’s always sell, sell, sell. So sometimes I guess we put up that individual shield to protect ourselves from that, but once you put that down and you made a good point of finding your true—it’s like going up on stage before a public speaking event. They say take a deep breath. But like you said, “Get in that mindset of you know what? I am Superman. I am Wonder Woman and I’m gonna go out there and I’m just gonna be the best person that I can be at this moment. And I’m gonna give it everything I’ve got because life is too short to be scared and holding back” and especially moments when you can be meeting some great, great people. Before the interview started we talked about your book that’s coming out here, and you talk to non-profits and business leaders. What have you learned from those people would you say, a couple things that you pulled away?

Wow, you know, it was amazing as I said. I interviewed over 110 people. I just did not expect the generosity of people, and they shared their stories and everybody’s got a story. Somebody had to overcome something. Whether it is, you know, I mean one of my great interviews and I was so surprised is this woman was, you know, an intelligent woman in finances. She and her husband ended up in jail for six years.

Oh boy.

Yeah, because of wrongdoing and she had stage III breast cancer and had to go through treatment in there. And she talks about they wouldn’t let her have a pillow because it’s against the policy, so the women prisoners wove a pillow out of Kotex pads for this woman.

Wow.

So, you know, you hear stories like this, people sharing. One gentleman, you know, his mom was killed, and so he now has a camp for kids who can every summer where they can talk about a family member who was killed. You know, everybody’s got a story, but we all present this, “I’m great. I’m wonderful.” And then you find out what’s behind it, you know, and stuff, and that’s the kind of blessing that came to me was the courage of people and also the creativity that people just, I mean you don’t think of creativity, everybody thinks of it as being, you know, an artist, a photographer, but there’s creativity in leadership. There’s creativity in the way you lead your company. One of the gentleman I interviewed was Tom Walter of Tasty Catering Company here, and he’s won a couple of awards now for best place to work, and his team came to him just a few years ago. His young whippersnappers, as he calls them, came to him and said, “Either you get rid of captain and commander style or we’re quitting.” And he did. He changed it up. They are a values-based company to the point where every meeting is begun with their values which are posted—I went and had lunch with them—all over the place. And they actually post their profit and loss statement every day so everybody is totally involved and knows where they’re falling behind or where they’re succeeding. It is a totally different model.

Oh, for sure. You talked about being creative. How do you access that? For somebody that’s not used to finding that inner creative little bone in their body, how do they go about in accessing that?

Well, I think that creativity really is how you problem solve. It’s how you address life. It could be the way you cook. I mean there are so many avenues of creativity, so we have to broaden our definition.

Sure.

But I think, you know, look at it from a perspective of play the game what if. Start with, “What if I could change this? What if?” You know, or just play with, like take a paper bag and imagine you could come up with 100 uses for it, and you start and the first five and six will be easy and then like, “The rest are harder,” but you’ll come up with it. And I think the other piece is change perspective. So go out. When you’re at work and you’re just struggling with an idea and it can’t come together. Just get out of the building. Just take a walk in nature, you know, just get out there and change it up. Look from a different perspective. Imagine you are a child of six or seven looking at the problem versus you as the adult enmeshed in whatever voices that are already going on and whatever dialogues you’ve got. So those are some of the ways, and I think brainstorming but not necessarily like the traditional brainstorming, but I mean put pieces of paper on every wall, move your furniture. I think physical space is really important in brainstorming. We don’t do that enough. We all just sort of sit at our desks in silence instead of just like get up and move. And everybody write something on a whiteboard and then move on to the next one, and you never know where that answer will come from. It’s presenting a no-fail option. You know, it’s like anybody can just, and then we won’t criticize you. There’s no judgment.

Right. Right. Well, and that’s the thing. Some people are afraid to give a suggestion because they don’t want to be laughed at or that’s silly or stupid, but at the same time that’s how creative gets sparked. Somebody gives an idea, then you kind of jump on it and you give it a little twist. Then somebody else will add a suggestion and then it kind of just rolls into something great and something that you can use that’s very practical to your application. So, no, those are very good points. Throughout your journey, obviously you said you’re 63 years young, correct?

Correct.

What kind of tools or tips did you get or did you use to put you in the situation to get these ideas about being creative, the ideas about leadership?

I think for me this journey has been, I called myself a self-help junkie at one point. I used to go to all these, when I was in my mid 30s, I went all over the country following all these leaders and stuff who, and stuff like, and, but I really learned to journal. I think that is one of the gifts that was big for me. Journaling and also scribbles and doodles. We all scribble and doodle when we’re sitting at the phone.

Yes.

And if you can just sort of sometimes put a plan. You know, you’re thinking about something and you just start scribbling the answer will come to you because it changes, when you scribble you just relax. Your endorphins are released. There’s this whole physical component to that. It’s that 20 minutes that sometimes you’re driving and where’d the time go? That’s what happens when you scribble and your mind just frees itself to give you the intuition and the answers that you were looking for.

Now if somebody approached you or emailed you or called you and they said, “You know what? Can you give me a tip, just one thing that I can do today to kind of reset the way I think, act, and believe?” what would you suggest or say to them? That’s a loaded question. Obviously, you could go on for hours about that. But is there one thing that people can take action today or the moment that you hang up the phone with them that they can use immediately.

Okay. I would say get a journal. A journal and a box of crayons. You know, crayons get you to that place of being a child again and so that’s when wonder and joy happens. So I would get that big journal, you know, like a sketchbook journal and you can write and you can draw and scribble. And the other thing is I call it a visual diary which is another way to spark any ideas that you want, so you would just, you know, start collecting pictures from magazines from the internet, things that you like. Sort of like Pinterest is, you know. And that kind of thing because that’ll just spark everything. It also can create calm when you’re stressed. It makes you happy. And so I think that idea of journaling and using this visual diary will change your life.

That’s a really good point. It’s a funny story. I actually hard recently that somebody went to art school at a very world-renowned art company, and they said snap off all the tips of your crayons because you want to know and understand how the crayon will react to you. You don’t want to have that nice, straight, pointy tip. You want to break it and have those hard edges and understand you’re not always gonna get the nice, perfect, round tip at the end and you’re gonna utilize your creativity in understanding just how to interact with the things that you’re working with with your hands and I thought that was a really big point. Like you said, just being very creative and just letting those juices flow.

Well, it’s a process because you can’t get, I think the other, it’s a great idea. I always give people when they come I do this one-on-one VIP day where they come to me and we will work through taming their inner critic or tapping into their creativity, and I give them broken crayons.

Oh, nice.

And they’re like, “Why are you giving me broken crayons?” And I say, “I don’t want you worried about, ‘Oh, if I break it, it has to be perfect.’ This is about the process.” Because when we are involved in the process and not the product we are much freer. We are more open. We are more joyful.

And speaking of joyful and I’m kind of bringing this back around, there’s a little part in your website that you talk about ten ways to say thank you at work, and why should we be grateful and why should we say thank you and extend our hand to people that maybe we don’t get along with that well, especially in our work place?

Okay, I think that when you say thank you for the work and acknowledge it, you motivate them. They want to step up and lead. They will be wiling to stay late to take on the extra challenges. So if you acknowledge the work they do and not own it, so many leaders are still stuck in “I have to own that idea,” instead of giving the team credit and I think that becomes a lose-lose rather than a win-win. And if we share the credit with people it makes a difference because they, I mean unfortunately statistics say that 80% of people are not engaged at work. That affects your bottom line in every way. People have said that they’d rather have thank yous and acknowledgement for their work rather than a money bonus.

It’s just the little things that really make a huge impact and also, too, not only saying thank you but giving compliments to people that you don’t even know too an enlighten yourself as you obviously know throughout your studies that can really generate some positive energy within yourself to keep saying the thank you’s to other people and putting yourself out there. It’s not like, “Hey, thank you.” It’s an actual joyful, meaningful, you know, “I really do appreciate what you have done for this company, for myself, and whatnot.”

And it’s not just thank you. It’s acknowledging what they do.
Yes.

So if it’s your smile today or the way you answer the phone or how you handled that situation with grace and ease, those are the things that make a bigger difference. It’s taking that little extra step and acknowledging really what it is, whether you say, “Hey, thanks for your patience during this. I know we’ve struggled.” I like that. That really feeds you because you’re being honest and coming from your heart and it certainly feeds them.

Very good point about mind maps. Kind of focusing, visually outlining your information that’s coming into you. Do you mind going into mind maps and how we can benefit from them?

Not at all. I think it’s great. It’s one of those tools that I use not really realizing it was intuitive for me before I even learned about Poisson and his work with mind maps. It was just intuitive for me to always mind map. I mean it can be as simple as a circle with spokes out like on a wheel, you know. It can take you to see where you are, it starts with a problem, a premise, you know, put it in the center and then everything you can think about going out and then you keep adding more and more information. So all of a sudden you’ve created every step you need to do to get where you are, you know, get from where you are to where you want to be.

Right. Right. Exactly. And you said in your thirties you really dove deep into the self-help atmosphere. What was a big moment for yourself that slingshotted you to where you are currently? Was there one big meeting or one big person that you met or a book you read that was just so inspiring that you just had to take action?

Well, my mantra in my 30s was Susan Jeffers’ book Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway.

Okay.

That was the biggest thing I ever, like, wow. That just was for 30 years that was sort of where, I’ve always used that. Even if I’m afraid, I just feel it and do it anyway. Being courageous is not the absence of fear; it’s going ahead even though you’re fearful.

Yeah. And how do you take action? People have ideas. They set out their time. They talk to their boss. They’re able to give back to the community. They figure out their mind map. They kind of have all the things in their certain little place. How do they take action now and just say, “You know what? Today’s the day that I’m gonna take this by the hand and I’m gonna drag this along and I’m gonna push through and I’m gonna make this possible.” How does somebody do that?

Well, I think it helps if you have a mentor, a coach, a support team, because we all get sort of stuck in our own head, so I think it’s really important to find those people who will support you and that they will acknowledge every step you do, help you celebrate because we won’t go forward if we don’t feel we are getting anywhere and we can celebrate. And I think the biggest key is breaking it down into really small, manageable steps. Instead of like, “Oh my god, I’ve got to lose 100 lbs. Okay, no I’ve only got to lose 2 lbs this week.” You can take it that way and then when you have those people saying, “Wow, that is great. You reached your goal.” And I think that helps perpetuate you to go forward for your dreams and I think that’s critical. We all have to have those dreams that we are reaching for.

Yeah, it’s kind of like that team atmosphere. You’re not gonna be able to complete the goal or task by yourself. Sometimes you need that support and the people around you to give you suggestions, tips, and just to keep you moving along. The last question here before we wrap this up. Obviously, you are a coach and people can contact you about getting additional help and resources. How do you personally stay motivated? Obviously, there are days that you wake up that you’re just not in the zone. You’re not present. How do you bring yourself present? Do you have any tips that you can share with us that we can use in our lives?

Yeah. I really, I’m a passion test facilitator and one of the things that I, when I took this and I became, it was every time you’re faced with a choice, a decision, choose in favor of your passions. So I really look at that every day. It’s posted on my desk. These are my passions. And that’s what I do. And the other piece is I do have my own personal coach that I work with. I do my journaling and scribbling and doodling every day. So those are the three things that keep me motivated.

Perfect. Well, Rae I appreciate your time. Thank you for coming on the podcast and we can contact you at TheWinningAdventure.com. Are you on Twitter or Facebook?

I’m on Twitter. I’m on Facebook. I’m RaeLuskin@Facebook and on Twitter I am SurvivorSoulutions. And I’m on LinkedIn. And if they go to my website too I’ve got a couple things going on right now. I have a free report on visioning and goal setting to take you from where you are to where you want to be and with some exercises in there and I have a new coaching package coming up called Confident You, and there’s a free Confident You coach teleseminar coming up soon.

Okay. Perfect. And also, too, they can go on there to contact you about coaching and things like that.

Totally. I have a thing under contact. If you fill out this little questionnaire, I’ll give you a Discovery Session. There’s an Ignite Leadership survey on there. So there’s lots of ways for you to take the information and use it for yourself and for your team and I’d love to talk to you.

Perfect. Perfect. Well, Rae, we really do appreciate your time. You gave some great information, especially the point of just giving back to the community because there’s nothing better than giving back and paying it forward. So I really do appreciate your time. Thank you so much and we’ll keep in touch.

All right. Thank you so much.

So there’s the interview with Rae Luskin from TheWinningAdventure.com. Again, go to OperationSelfReset.com/podcast011 to get all the links, details and more information about Rae and her great website. She does have a lot of free resources on the website. I would say it’s pretty beneficial. Some great, little guides to help you find your true passion, to help you find and talk to your inner critic and figure out time management, all that fun stuff she stated. Yeah, I’d say it’s a really good little website to go check out and also, too, she provided some really great tips that we can all pull away in every direction of life. Kind of a lot of the things that I stated in the introduction that encompasses Operation Self Reset.

It’s time to kind of wrap up the show, but before I let you guys go I want to ask for your help and assistance. If you guys have not left a review on iTunes, it would be greatly, greatly appreciated. Every review helps. It helps boosts the rankings and everything like that. So if you guys enjoy the podcast, give it five stars. If you hate it, if you despite it, well, then leave one star. So that’s totally up to you. Whatever your heart desires, leave a review. Greatly appreciate it either way. Also, too, guys, feel free to get in contact with me: support@operationselfreset.com. I am here to listen and to help you along your journey and your new path in life.

I want to leave you guys actually with a little quote that I found. The reason why I want to bring this up is because a lot of you guys have been contacting me about your job. In America, we do not really enjoy what we do. It’s a job that pays the bills, that allows us to go out to eat, to do some things on the weekends, but we know it’s not something we love. So here’s a little quote that maybe you can get a little inspiration, a little better idea of the job you’re in and maybe shine a different light on it, and I quote, “Don’t worry about the next job. Consume yourself in this job and opportunities will come your way.” That’s from Tim Brewster. So there you guys go. Maybe it shines just a little different light on it, and lets you guys realize that maybe you’ve got to stick it out and opportunities will come to transform the job that you hate into something that maybe you will enjoy. So either way, I support your decisions in whatever avenue you decide to take in your own personal life.

And one last time, I just want to remind you guys, on July 4th of this year, I interviewed Mike Thornton. He was a Medal of Honor recipient, one of the original members of SEAL Team 6. If you have a second, take a listen to that podcast. It’s podcast number 10, but on OperationSelfReset.com/podcast010, at the bottom leave a comment for him. I’m trying to collect a lot of comments to send to him personally via snail mail, and I think it would be a really cool way to show our appreciation to a true American hero. If you have a second, it would be huge: one sentence, two sentences, whatever it may be. Something is better than nothing. So if you could do that, that’d be great.

Again, guys, you are the best. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast, and we will see you in the next episode. If you guys have any suggestions for me for future episodes or somebody to contact, reach out to me at support@operationselfreset.com. And we’ll go from there. So thanks again, guys. Make it a great day.
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