Hey, welcome to Lessons From a Quitter where we believe that it is never too late to start over. No matter how much time or energy you spent getting to where you are, if ultimately you are unfulfilled, then it is time to get out. Join me each week for both inspiration and actionable tips so that we can get you on the road to your dreams.

Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode. I am so excited you are here. I am back from Wyoming for a month. If you were following me on Instagram, you got to see how strikingly gorgeous that state or area is that we were. And a lot of you asked me to give like a recap like as I was there, I was really just observing my mind in a lot of ways. And I figured I would do an episode giving you a recap of how it went but really what I learned from this excursion. So that's what we're gonna do today and I'm so excited. But before I do, I wanted to let you know something. I've alluded to the fact that I'm gonna have a new offer. I'm gonna put out a new way that you guys can, that we can work together. And that I think I can better serve you. And I think that we can create a community and really help you create a career that you love. And I am working on that. I don't have all of the details yet but I did want to let you know that like when I launch it, which will be in a couple of months. I don't wanna hold myself to a date. But anyways, like around September timeframe, I will only be launching to my email list first. And I will be giving them a substantial discount like a 50% off to be kind of founding members of this new program. So if you're interested in knowing what the program is, if you have wanted to work with me, if you want to change your career, if any of those things sound appealing, get on my email list so that you can make sure that you not only get in when doors open but that you get the best deal. So you can go to quitterclub.com/newsletter that's N-E-W-S-L-E-T-T-E-R newsletter. And get on that. It's like sort of a wait list but not really. You just get really helpful emails once a week um giving you tips on things that you can do for your mindset. And and then you get to know when the new offer arises. So if you're on the email list, you'll get it. You don't need to do anything else but if you're not, go to quitterclub.com/newsletter and get on my email list. Okay, now onto my lessons. I'm just constantly thinking lessons now and this month taught me so many. I'm so glad I did it. Okay. So if we got back about a week and a half ago. We were there, for people that maybe haven't listened to the other episode, we decided to rent a house in Wyoming for one month and sort of work and play in a place outside of our house, kind of do a slower vacation where we didn't have to hit up everything in one week, where we got to kind of experience what it might be like living there, all of those really good things. And so my husband and I have had this dream to do this every summer to do it for maybe even two months, three months in different countries. And this was our first foray into this dream life that we have for ourselves. And let me tell you, it did not disappoint. It was magical. It was really better than I could have expected but I did learn so much just from doing this. And that's really what I wanted to share with you all. Okay. The first thing, the first lesson that I learned, and I know this and I think a lot of you guys know it too, but it was really I don't know fascinating with this one is that we always have fear of something new, even when it's good, right? Like I think oftentimes from people on the outside, when you are not the one making a decision, it seems like such a no-brainer or it seems like of course you would be just excited. Like why would you ever be nervous about, you know, going on vacation for a month? That seems like a dream. And I realize this comes up a lot with my clients too because they start going after something they want. They maybe quit their job or they take on a new job that they've wanted for a really long time. And they're overrun with fear. And they don't understand because this is the thing they had chosen, right? Like they have saved up their money to take let's say a sabbatical, a year off. And that sounds amazing in theory. And it's as it gets closer, their brain starts freaking out and it's a hundred percent normal, right? Because your brain is going to try to keep you alive. And in order to do that, it has to think of every single thing that can go wrong. So even when you're doing something fun or, you know, part of your dream life or whatever, you know, goal you're reaching, your brain is still gonna be pointing out all of the pitfalls, all of the potential disasters, everything that you're forgetting about because it's trying to make sure like you've trained your brain to constantly look for the holes, look for what could go wrong so that you can maybe have a contingency plan so that you can prepare for it. But in doing that, it's like we our brain is just kind of hyperactive in its need to want to protect us from every single thing that could potentially be wrong. And I was noticing this for both me and my husband as we were getting closer. It's like in theory, this sounded wonderful for months and months back. And when you tell people it sounds glorious and you're like oh my God, I can't believe we're doing this. It’s so great. And then as we were getting closer, we were both panicking. Like we we each had to calm the other one down because we kept really just thinking about not only like what could go wrong in our businesses, whether it would be a disaster with the kids, whether everybody would be miserable. Like every night my husband would be like have we made a terrible mistake? Why would we choose to go somewhere where we don't have childcare, where we are, you know, how am I supposed to get work done? What happens if the Internet's not working? Whatever it was. And like in hindsight, when you look at it and as we were going through it, we're like we could figure it out. We'll figure out whatever problem there is. But when you're getting like ready to do something that you haven't done, I remember thinking like it would've been just so much easier to stay home. Why did we decide to do this? This is so much work. That's another thing is like I think a lot of times things look as though it's so easy and wonderful and you don't realize how much work actually goes into like implementing. And I think a lot of times our brains very quickly wanna give up like this isn't worth it. You know, like for me personally like I had to do most of the work I was gonna do in June in May. So it not only doubled the amount of work that I was typically doing but also like having to logistically figure out going to another place for a month and what the kids were gonna do and where we were gonna see. And it just created a lot of additional to-do’s which tend to usually overwhelm me and stress me out. And so it was just fascinating for me to watch both of us before we left and how much we were panicking and how much fear there was. And it was just a reminder for myself because I see it a lot with my clients too, that I think sometimes we think that that's not normal. Like why can't I just be grateful? Or why am I not more excited for this? And I think it's just because humans don't like uncertainty and we don't like the unknown, even if the unknown is exciting, even if the unknown is something we've chosen, there's still unknown. And so we will panic and kind of ruminate over it. And this is why it's so important to learn how to manage your mind. Because I I was able to calm myself down and my husband down, right. To talk through like okay, what is the worst case scenario? What would happen if, you know, for him let's say his business or for me, for my business, like if it needed something, what are plan B and C and D that we can think of off the top of our heads? Like all of that stuff helped to show us that the fears were overblown and obviously it would be fine. But I just say this to say that like while it might look amazing on Instagram or wherever you're seeing other people do this stuff, I think behind the scenes there's always just a brain that's losing it somewhere. And so like that was definitely happening before we left. So that was one. The second thing I realized was just, and this is a lesson I keep learning over and over again is learning how to deprogram my brain from everything I was taught about what I quote unquote deserve or what we deserve or what you have to do to deserve it. And I remember with this month, I have these thoughts very regularly now where it's like how much do I share? What do I tell people? People are gonna judge. And the reality is like in America especially, like I've talked about this with the money, we are all very on board with the hustle. Like we're all very on board with the person working towards the dream. Like we want you to have the dream that you are gonna be a millionaire or you're gonna have all this money or whatnot and you can build the business. But once you get there, we're very good at shaming people who actually spend money and have money. And I think it's been a fascinating experience for me to kind of be on both ends of that equation of like being somebody who was raised here without a lot of money and wanting to work for a certain thing and then getting there and feeling a lot of the shame and guilt. This is not to say, like I am extremely privileged and I realize that my privilege has a lot to do with where I'm at today and and what is possible for me. But I realized like a lot of times when I was talking about this and I would get comments about like it must be nice. And like whether it's realistic for people to take a month off, you know, mind you we were working. So it's not as though we took a month off but even if we were gonna take a month off and we get these questions and it was really fascinating to me because it's only in America that we think taking a month off is a very extreme luxury that like who do you think you are? What are you the queen of England? Like you're just gonna take a month off. And it is an extreme luxury in America because people don't even take a whole week off. They don't take two weeks off, let alone a month. Right. But that's not the case in most other countries, especially European countries. I have a lot of cousins that live in Europe and like taking a month off is the norm every single year. My husband has some employees in Europe and it's in we talk about it cuz like they put in their request for that month every year for an entire month. They go camping. One of his employees goes camping for three weeks somewhere in the wilderness in France I guess. And it's interesting for me to watch people think that like there is some like truth of what, you know, what humans deserve and what they don't and really understanding like all of these things are made up, all of these ideas. Now, is it true that most people in America probably won't be able to take a month off? Yeah, because that's the way we've set up our system. But that doesn't mean that it's right. Or it's the way it should be. Or if you do get it that, you know, there needs to be all this guilt and shame. I had somebody reach out on Instagram telling me about how they have also been working for the past year towards leaving for the month of July. And she messaged me saying like, you know, we've been talking about this for four years. Um it's taken me 11 months to set up all of the help that I would need at work and train the people and hire the people and put people in place. And now that we're going, I just I have a lot of mixed emotions. I keep thinking like who are we to do this? Are we the people that quote unquote summer someplace? All of these questions are riddled with a lot of judgment, right? Like just the question of who summers like what that term actually even means. And the judgment that we have around that. Do we really need to have this kind of a trip? Is it responsible for me to leave for this long? Right. Like all of these thoughts come in and it's so funny the thought of like do we need to have this right? It's like who needs to? Maybe you don't, maybe none of us need to but why would that ever be the requirement of what we get to do or what we choose to do for our lives or what we're able to do? And again, it was just such a fascinating message because it encompassed exactly what I went through too. And what I see a lot of people go through is, again, when we're working towards it, when we're talking about the dream, when we're planning it for four years, when we're spending that year like drilling down, we can put off these thoughts and because we're in the hustle and we're actually like we've all tied our productivity so much to our worth that it actually makes us feel good. But then when we get to the fruit of that labor, when we get to the prize, whatever the thing is that we're working to, we're racked with all this shame and guilt about like do we need this? Do I which is like do I deserve this? Why don't other people get to do this? Who do I think I am? Is it irresponsible? All of these things that in a lot of other cultures are just normal. Taking a month off like a lot of people don't have a lot of drama in Europe about taking a month off. And it was just fascinating for me to realize this as I was doing it too. To think about like what are the thoughts I wanna have about the amount of time that I quote unquote deserve or whether I need to deserve time off? Like what if I just got to rest because I got to and yes, I can acknowledge the fact that I'm privileged that I get to and other people may not be able to but me not doing it doesn't mean that they'll all of a sudden get the opportunity to do it. So what do I get by martyring myself? Right. And these are a lot of the questions that I've kind of been coaching on myself and grappling with because I still was raised in this society. And I still have a lot of those thoughts and I really don't want people to judge me in a certain way. But then I think like but why do we have these beliefs? Like I wanna push people to question why do you need to deserve a certain thing? Why would you quote unquote need a month off in order to be able to take it? Like if if you've worked and been able to create that flexibility in your life, why is that just not okay? And I, again, I see this all the time in my coaching programs because I have people who for instance, will work at a company that provide sabbaticals. Like if you work for eight years or 10 years, you get like a six-months, you can qualify for a six-month sabbatical. And then they get there and then it's they're racked with guilt and they're rack with what if and I don't wanna get, you know, behind in my career and what if I get passed up for promotions and do I really need to take this time? And what would I do with this? It's just fascinating to see. So I that was just really the second thing that I was grappling with the whole time was gosh, do I have a lot more deprogramming to do? And I've already, you know, taken a bunch of steps and I've clearly went out and did this thing. And yet, so much of it was coming up for me. And I know for so many of you who really struggle with this of like what is it that you quote unquote deserve and need? And, you know, what's the bare minimum that you you should be able to get away with like questioning it, right? Questioning like what you think you deserve, questioning why. You gotta start doing that work now so that you even let yourself cause a lot of times we'll self-sabotage. Like if we don't think we deserve to take that much time off, you know, because our parents didn't get to or our cousins don't or our friends don't have the money. We start self-sabotaging because we think like I don't want them to judge me. Right. Who do I think I am? I'm not better than anybody else. Listen, I've had a thought for a while now. I think I've mentioned this before, when I went on a my first first class flight last year and I was looking around and I kept thinking like I don't deserve this more than anybody. That's just true. I like nobody deserves any of this stuff more than anybody else. I also don't deserve it less. So it's like there's also all gonna be all these other people that are in first class. And a lot of 'em don't look like me and there's no reason why I shouldn't be here as well. Like if I have that opportunity, why am I taking that away from myself? So that was the second thing. The third thing that I really had to grapple with a lot before we left and even while we were there, is this question of like is it really impossible or are you just scared? How possible is this dream that you have? And I think a lot of times we want to think and believe that whatever dream we have is impossible or I can't do it or there's no way. And truly most of the time, it's just your fear speaking. It's just that it's gonna be hard or uncomfortable or you're gonna have to deal with some difficult conversations. It's not it's absolutely possible. If you see anybody else doing it, that means it's possible. And so really grappling with like where am I telling myself these things are impossible or I can't do it? And where is it really that I just don't know how to handle that or I don't know how to deal with this aspect of it? And I'll tell you, this really has been brought to life for me watching my husband take these steps because like for me, yes, I run my business but I mostly work alone. I have a VA that works for me but she works in another state. So it's not as though like, you know, I work out of my bedroom basically. For me, it wasn't a huge lift to like go to Wyoming and work, right. For a lot of us that are maybe sole entrepreneurs, that's not as big of a deal but for my husband, he is the CEO of a company that employs between 40 and 50 people right now. And they manufacture things that are, you know, you have to be in person to manufacture and ship and have product. And I've been so fascinated watching him grow into the CEO that he's become. He's been growing this company since 2006. So what's that 15 years, 16 years. And it's been clearly obviously a very big growth and shift for him over that time period. But just watching in the last couple of years, he's grown this company to a really successful, impressive company. And yet he's so good at managing his mind. And he's so good at really figuring out like what are his own limiting beliefs and what are things he actually like needs to do in order to create a successful business. And when I say that is that he's in a group with other business owners. And we talk about this a lot about how much they work nights weekends like never taking a break, never taking a vacation. And he's the exact opposite. He typically comes home at six o'clock. He doesn't work weekends. He very rarely, unless there's like some kind of an emergency, will have to go in at kind of after hours. And we've talked a lot about like what is the difference? And he takes vacations. And we were talking about, as we were planning this month, like for him leaving the office where everybody else is working and manufacturing these products and making sure that you have kind of your hand on the pulse when things are going wrong. And they always are, there's always like some kind of like little uh mini emergency. I think a lot of people start believing these stories of like I need to be there or I need to work more or I need to get more done. And sometimes that's really, I mean, it's just fear. A lot of it is like the need to feel important, the need to feel wanted and needed. Like if, you know, I need to feel important as the CEO somehow which leads to a lot of people not being able to delegate, not hiring other people, not trusting people to do their own jobs, micromanaging. Like we've all seen a lot of that. And all of that comes from your own limiting beliefs. It doesn't come from the actual work that needs to get done. And I've been so proud of him watching him but really like fascinated. I don't even know if I could do it to be honest. Like I haven't, I've never been in that situation but I think it takes so much more trust. Like for me, obviously the lift was a lot lower. It wasn't that big of a deal for me to go work from somewhere else. But watching him like have faith and trust, not only in the systems and the processes that he's created and the people that work there and letting them do their own jobs and knowing that like I don't need to be here in order for work to get done. I think not only is he very blessed and like privileged to be able to do that. But I just think like getting to that place wasn't easy because everything around us in our society has sort of trained us to believe that if you want something done, you gotta do it yourself. And people are gonna try to get away with not doing more work and you have to be on top of people. And like you are the one that has to make these decisions. And I see so many other business owners like burn themselves out completely because they never take time off. They never completely unplug. They are constantly overworking because of these thoughts that they have. And so I've just been fascinated really thinking about what is actually necessary, what is impossible to do and what is just your fear. And this trip really solidified that for us. I think this pushed us more than we've done it. Before like we've taken a week off but I think really getting things into place, especially for him to not be there for an entire month and to be able to do work from somewhere else and check in and make sure everything is still going smoothly just helped me realize how much of that stuff that we wanna cling to as like no, I can't. No, that's impossible. No, we could never. No, it's too hard. A lot of that stuff's made up. I hate to say it but it really is. And when you kind of do the work to make sure you figure out like if it was possible, how would I do it? Right. If I wanted to figure out a way to take time off, how would I do that? And I'm telling you, I mean, it's better to do it voluntarily than wait to a place where you have to get to, where you are either completely burned out, where something happens where you have to take the time off and then everybody's scrambling to figure out how to deal without you. As opposed to really, truly figuring out like how can I do my job in a way that affords me more time off? Like like I manage the guilt and the shame and all this other stuff that I have wrapped up in the amount of hours I work because the amount of hours doesn't equal the value that you put in, right? I want you guys to actually, I'm gonna jump it into that as the next lesson but I really want you to hear me. I used to think that time equals money. So the amount of work you worked is like the how valuable you were. The more you worked, I remember like the horror stories and how much we used to think about people that pulled all-nighters and worked 24 hours that does not make you more valuable. What makes you valuable is the value that you provide. If you can provide that value in an hour, as opposed to eight hours, you're just as valuable, right? Like think about it. You pay people. If you go to a lawyer or to a doctor or someone, you're not paying 'em for the number of minutes or hours that they're working on your case or they're doing, you're paying them for their expertise. If they can figure something out in 10 minutes and tell you, it's just as valuable if it's if if it took them four hours to figure it out and tell you, right? And so when we start thinking about this, even with our own jobs and our own lives and figuring out like okay, if I can provide the value I need to provide in one hour, why do I have to work eight hours? Now again, if you're an employee, I'm not saying that you wouldn't have to work. Like you have to work the amount of time that they want you to work. But even with that, I coach so many people who tell me like they get their work done in half the time and they just feel guilty that they're not working more. And my question's always why? Like you're getting paid to provide that value. You're providing that value. If your company is not complaining, why is it that you believe that you should just be filling the eight hours of time? And that's only because someone had told us that we should be working eight hours. And so as I was watching him and realizing like oh, he can provide the value that he provides for that company, the guidance, the meetings, the calls, the, you know, dealing with customers, whatever, in a shorter period of time. So why would he have to be there nights and weekends and working 12 hours a day to prove that I don't know he's a good CEO or something like that? And that leads me to the next one, which again, going back to this like kind of time money these lessons that I learned over and over, I had my most profitable month this last month while I was on vacation. If you follow me on Instagram, you know I posted saying that I made $80,000 in five days with the launch of the program this last round. And that's like a click bait obviously a headline because it wasn't just five days. I spent months prepping for the launch. I spent months providing free value so I wasn't making money. I launch only a couple of times a year so that's the only time I make money. And then like I won't make money for the next couple of months. Um there's a lot that goes behind like what people tell you like I made this much in this many days. Like it's not like I'm making $80,000 every five days but all that aside, it was super fascinating for me to see that in a month where I was working maybe an hour a day, an hour or two a day for the first couple weeks when I was there. And I had done all of the pre-launch stuff in May and I had built this audience and this program that now allows me to be able to make what I made, I used to make $80,000 or $79,000 actually as a public defender as my yearly salary. So like it still blows my mind that I made what I made in an entire year working 60 hours a week in five days. And again, it's not in five days and like I'm gonna have to deliver on that coaching program for six months but you get what I'm saying. Like it's still mind-blowing. It's one of the most profound lessons I keep learning is that time doesn't equal money. It just doesn't. The more value that you can provide, the more money you will make. And you can provide that in an hour. Great. You know and the value is determined by the customer and the customer, if you're an employee, is your employer. Like your employer is your customer. They're paying you for value. And so they determine what that value is. And if you want to make more money, you have to figure out how do I provide more value? And that doesn't mean more hours. That's what we all go to is like well, I'll just work more and then maybe they'll notice it. But if we start thinking more strategically and thinking about like how can I provide more value in the same amount of time that I work or in less amount of time, what would that look like? What actually moves the needle forward? What am I wasting my time and distracting myself with? Like that's what I want you to start focusing on when you're thinking about, even at your day job, like if I wanna get a promotion, I wanna get a raise, what does my employer pay me for? What value? How can I provide more and show them? Be able to like advocate for myself and show that like this is what I've done. This is why I should get paid this much. This is what somebody else on the market is getting paid for this work. This is all of the money I've brought into the business because of the skills that I've brought. Whatever the situation is for you. Like that's how you start figuring out how do I make more money as an employee let's say. And as an entrepreneur, if you're gonna jump into side hustling or entrepreneurship, then you need to hear this more than anybody. The number of hours that you work does not equal how much you get paid. There's tons of entrepreneurs who are working a hundred hours a week and they're not making anything. And then there's other ones who are not working that much and are making a lot more because they're figuring out like what is someone's problem? How do I solve it? If I can provide that value, then people will pay me. And so I realized again, like I think that that lesson for me was just a profound one because I sort of thought well, if I'm taking this month off, it might be slower. Things are gonna slow down. I don't I'm not gonna be as full on. And I really think that because I was only working a little bit, when I showed up, I showed up more fully than I normally do. I had some of the most like productive hour sessions of like writing emails and figuring out like how I can help people solve some problems and it paid off. Right. And I think it was the same thing for my husband watching him have I think they also had one of their best months ever. And obviously they have a lot of people that are working on it but it just seeing that like whether he was there in the office or not is not what created their best months. So that was four. The fifth lesson I really learned on this trip was that I want you to always be expanding your idea of who you are. Like so many of us keep trying to fit ourselves into a box and then just live in that box, smack dab in the middle of that box. And we have these like sentences about ourselves that we just like say is absolute truth. And then we limit what we do based on those. So I'll give you an example. For me, I've always said like I'm not outdoorsy. I don't really like outdoor stuff. Right. And it's true to a certain extent. Like there are some things I don't enjoy. And part of this is getting to know and honor like, you know, just because other people like it doesn't mean I have to. And like maybe that's not for me. Uh like for me, not a big camper, not someone that wants to like sleep and live outdoors for any period of time. Fine, I know that about myself. That's great. But I think that I had like I've talked a lot about my stories about being lazy and I'm not that into like physical fitness and by that into I mean at all like I don't exercise. It's not a good thing. I'm trying to change that. But I had this just this idea of like oh, that's not me. And I think for a really long time, I kind of pigeonholed myself into this thing of like I enjoy cities more and that's where I wanna go on vacations and I'm not an outdoors person. And I remember when we chose Wyoming, I was very nervous cuz I had all these thoughts about myself and I kept thinking like am I gonna enjoy going out like hiking all the time? I mean, I do like going to lakes and things like that but I was just like what am I gonna do? I don't wanna go mountain biking. Like what are the things that I'm gonna enjoy? And I mean, this vacation blew my mind in the best way. Turns out I am outdoorsy but just in my own way. And it was really interesting to find something that brought me so much joy that I didn't ever really allow to bring me so much joy. And I realized like during this trip I was like I'm just expanding my capacity to experience joy like more joy. I still love cities. I love the hustle and bustle. I love going to cafes and restaurants. I love there being tons of people. Like that's just actually something I very much enjoy but I also love being in nature and I love going on hikes. Like now I'm that person. And I'm like good to know. It was good for me to see, to put myself in that situation and see like what can I find from this that I do enjoy? How do I lean into that? How do I cultivate that for myself? How do I like listen and figure out like no, this is too much but I actually do enjoy this. And how do I start taking these labels off? I started realizing like stop saying you're not outdoorsy. What does that even mean? Right. Like you love being in nature but you just do it in your own way. And I realize in that like it really truly opened me up to so much more. And I say this because I really had closed off like well, I don't like going camping. I'm not that big into going to national forests because I'd only seen people that kind of do the van life and do RVs. And I was like I don't wanna do that. And as I went into this month, after this month I didn't realize this would happen. But I I was so enamored by the area by the Grand Tetons by Yellowstone. And I remember like as I was there, I was like oh, what's the next national forest we're gonna go to? We gotta find somewhere else. We gotta take the kids. Right. And it was so fascinating to see myself start thinking in that way and start realizing like oh, there's so many parts of my personality that I haven't explored. And so many parts for all of you guys. And I think that a lot of what I teach and a lot of people that come into my program, we talk about exploring things, trying things that you've never done before, going back to things that maybe you liked as a child. And I think so many of us think that we're fixed that like our personality is fixed and I'm just realizing as I get older like how much I constantly change as I get older. The new things that I end up liking and not liking. And so I just want you to like explore this idea that maybe there's so much of your personality of who you are that you haven't even explored yet, that you don't even know yet. You haven't allowed yourself to get to know because you put yourself in some box because you decided that's not for me or I'm not good at that or, you know, I've never I don't know been X, Y or Z. I'm even realizing this. I'd always said like oh, I'm not really woo woo. And to the, for the most part, I'm more analytical. I'm more like logic based, not not that woo is like defies logic or anything but as I've been doing this work, I've been finding some woo woo quote unquote woo things that like speak to me. And it's been really interesting for me to be able to push and be like what if I just let that in? Why do I have to cut it off so abruptly? And I think a lot of times we feel threatened because it's like well if this, this is who I've said I've been all my life. This was my identity. I'm the person that is X, right? I'm the person that's logical. I'm the person that only bases things on science. I'm the what. Okay well maybe I'm willing to open that up and I've talked a lot about this about like being willing to be wrong. And I think part of this is like being willing to change your mind about yourself, right? Like what if I am outdoorsy? What if I even like camping? Who knows. Maybe I've just told myself I don't. I'm willing to explore that in certain to a certain degree. I'm willing to at my own pace. Right. And I want you guys to think about that too. It's like maybe even things that you have cut off that might be available to you but you've told yourself like I'm just an introvert. I'm just this is, you know what I mean? Like I like to be alone. I like to whatever. I like to always be with people. I don't like being alone. Maybe explore being alone. Right. Maybe explore the opposite of the thing that you've told yourself all the time and see what you find because the more you allow different parts of you, like I said, I mean, you just expand your capacity to have positive emotions. You expand your capacity to have more curiosity and more joy and more love and more peace and more amusement. And the thrill of discovering something new. And so I was really leaning into that in this month. I really started realizing like I was joking around and being like I'm a hiker now but I truly just loved the hikes so much. I loved getting up every day and exploring and going for long walks and being out in nature. And that's just not something that I've really let myself explore. And so I'm excited to explore that more and I encourage you to do the same and I will wrap it up with this. I'll say the last lesson, my sixth lesson on this trip was sometimes it can be better than 50/50. So if you're a long-time listener, you know that I talk a lot about the fact that life is 50/50. And what I mean by that is that like there's always positive and negative. There's always good and bad emotions. And I do think that's one of the most helpful concepts that I've ever learned and has transformed my life. And even with this trip, I was very much preparing myself for 50/50 because going on a trip with two small kids is not really a vacation if we're just gonna keep it real with ourselves. And I was very much bracing myself for the fact that we're all gonna be in a house together for a month. Um, we're gonna try to get work done with two small kids which is no, you know, simple act and there's going to be a lot of emotions and there's gonna be a lot of tantrums and there's gonna be a lot of crying and there's gonna be all this other stuff that comes with it. And so I was resigned to the fact like fine, it'll be 50/50. That's fine. I'm there for the 50% of positive and I'll handle the 50 negative. And I was really just like alright, I got this like feeling really good about that, which is awesome. But then I got there and it was so much better than 50/50. I mean, it was it was 95/5. I don't even know. It was overwhelmingly good. I was so pleasantly surprised by how well all of these things I was afraid of happening didn't happen like how needed this trip was for us as a family, for my kids together, for the amount of time that they spend with me and my husband, just so many additional things that I hadn't even accounted for came out of this. And I remember thinking about this, thinking about this concept, and I know that some some of my students have a hard time with the concept because they don't want to settle quote unquote for 50/50 and that's fine. And I always say like okay, fine. It's 60/40, 70/30. I don't care, pick a number. I just want you to know that like it's okay to have negative emotions. And I I do think that that helped me throughout this month because I think when there was tantrums, when I was getting frustrated, when, you know, it's was the longest day ever when we're on hikes and they're complaining like it allowed me to not get into a pity party or not get angry at them or whatever. Not to be in this like why are you like this? Why or can't we enjoy this? What is wrong with this? As a family, like not become super dramatic. But I realized that in tempering my own joy in sort of wanting to brace for that negative, I was really expecting there to be so much more than there was. And the month was just so much better than I could have ever imagined. It was so much better because it allowed us to like push ourselves. It allowed us to uncover things about ourselves that we didn't know. It let us slow down. It let us reevaluate. Like what are we doing? What do we want out of this life? Like a lot of things that you don't get to sit and think about when you're in the rush of day to day. It allowed our kids to really bond and play with each other much more than they do at home cuz they're surrounded by cousins and friends in school and all this other stuff. It allowed us to have a lot of one-on-one time with both of our kids. There was just so much good. And when I was leaving, I was thinking like this was the best idea we've ever had. Now it could have gone the other way so I'm not saying like there's times where we've gone on trips where we're like this was a disaster and we will never do it again with small children. And even that's good to know, right? Like there's nothing wrong with that happening. There's nothing wrong with you. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't have done it. But I started realizing like I need to make more room for the magical. I need to make more room for the idea that it could just be so much better than I ever imagined. I need to make more room for the 90/10 instead of the 50/50. And that truly is what happened on this trip. And so we definitely will be looking into doing this again in the future. I don't know where that's gonna be or what that's gonna look like but I also encourage you to really push yourself to figure out like what is the dream thing that I wanna try? What is the dream life? If I could write it out and decide like if money wasn't an issue, if people wouldn't judge, what are the things I would try? Just so I can start like mining my own brain for like what is in there. What are my desires that I'm not letting come out because then maybe okay, I can do part of it. I can work towards it. Like that's how we start creating that dream life. And I'm just here to tell you that sometimes it's even better than you imagine. So that was my trip to Wyoming. Those weren't really my lessons to Wyoming. The rest of the trip was mostly just hiking, eating, laying, reading, watching movies, which is all glorious. And it really gave me a lot of time to reflect on what it is I wanna do with this community. What do I wanna do with my job? How do I wanna show up? This isn't a lesson but I'll just give you like an aside. I always talk about like how I wanna work a little bit less and then you get into work and you get caught up in scaling and growing. And I was realizing that again, I was kind of getting off-center. I was giving into things that weren't really what my values or what I want from my business to be. And I'm realigning that. I'm realizing like why did I start this business? What do I want it to feed? What do I want to get out of it? And like how do I take the time to constantly like recenter myself towards what I want and not what everybody else tells me I should have. And so a lot of wonderful things came out of it and I encourage you all, you don't have to take a month off, but just figure out like what is the thing that you want to do that you wanna work towards? What is like the secret dream that you're not sharing with other people? And like what is one thing that you can do to take a step towards that today? Because it could be better than you even imagine. I hope that these lessons were helpful. And like I said, if you want to start working towards that dream life, then get on my newsletter because I'm going to help you get there. You can go to quitterclub.com/newsletter and I will see you all next week. Bye you guys.

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