Thrive not just Survive

0:01 This program is designed to provide general information with regards to the subject matters covered. This information is given with the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial, legal counseling, professional service, or any advice. You should seek the services. Of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas. Hello, and thank you for tuning in to A Sharp Outlook on pay for HD radio and talk or TV. I am Angela Sharp, your host our arm chair discussions with industry experts will give you the steps, tools and information to be successful in business and to prepare you to be your best self.

0:54 Hello, I'm Angela Sharp, and thank you for joining us here at ah Sharp Outlook. I'm going to ask you a question. Are you thriving or are you just surviving? Just doing whate'er you're going just to survive the day. Training your brain to thrive rather than just survive is transformational process of reimagined life without the pain of the past. It's not pretending that nothing happened or you're not burned out, but it's a transformational thought of transformation of your thoughts and life patterns, that your focus is more on joy instead of being stuck in an old system of so called norms and criticism. If we process life through our power and potential and not our pain and past traumas, we could find inner peace. Imagine that that's a goal and achieve our dreams. Imagine feeling heard and understood. Learning to process negatives and appreciate the positives in our lives.

2:04 We pro that we focus on the wrong stimulus and beat ourselves up for not being the perfect dream or someone else. Don't ever try to be someone else. Be you, be authentic. We need to learn how to start thriving and finding joy of living. Today is a good day to make a start. How about that Today I have my guests Rashida and Dustin Dean and they are here as my guest to tell us how that we can start thriving instead of just getting by, instead of just surviving.

2:44 Dean is a nationally certified psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, transformational coach, and founder of mind Maxed Institute, a mental health, wellness and brain fitness platform built for high achieving professionals, educators, and individuals seeking real, lasting change. With over twenty years of experience as a prescriber, psychotherapist, and professor, Dustin is known for delivering coaching experience that's as clinical as it is compassionate. He helps his clients do more than just cope, but helps them thrive rather than just survive. Brain Fitness is a science back system that trains the mind to process life through power and potential rather than pain and past remembrance. He offers one on one coaching sessions or cohort based group experiences. Through the Mind Max Institute, Dustin is redefining what mental wellness looks like, less about diagnosis and more about momentum. This program is built for developing communities of leaders working towards joy optimization and max and maxed mental wellness outcomes for themselves and the individuals they are committed to serving in their chosen professions. And we also have Rashida Dean, a family life coach and women's

4:18 empowerment strategists over fifteen years of experience, currently serving full time with nationally recognized Jeremiah Program. While she specializes in supporting women, particularly minority mothers and those navigating complex life transitions, she is equipped to coach individuals of all backgrounds who are seeking greater purpose, stability, and growth. Rashida is a skilled Somali English interpreter, cultural liaison and training psychology to graduate from Carlton University. Her ability to connect across cultures is uplifting and empowering for the clients she supports. Rashida is passionate about helping women see their potential and helping them become victors rather than victims. She approaches this the same for the moms she cares for at the Jeremiah Program, as well as the executives and entrepreneur entrepreneurs she coaches at Max at mind Max Institute, Bringing Hope to the Hopeless is where Rashida thrives as a survivor of the Somali Civil War. She believes that reality is formed through brain fitness and focusing on the outcome you desire, not the despair you have survived. I want to dig deeper into this conversation, so I'm going to invite Rashida and

5:51 Dustin to join me now so we can get into this conversation. So keep up and learn how to start thriving and having joyful life and having joyful days and just smiling and laughing more instead of or just crying every other second. Let's start thriving. That's what we want to know about, all right, So why do you say burnout isn't about being busy or doing too much, but it's about losing yourself in the process. Well, first of all, I got to say, what a what an honorable introduction, and you set the standard high.

6:32 You know, hopefully I know Rashida can live up to it. Hopefully I'll be able to too. But thank you and Angela. It's such a pleasure. You know, you had me on before and I just really appreciate this and to be here with my mind Max co founder Rashida now and we're just excited about this. So to answer your question, you know, it comes back to the brain fitness kind of that you mentioned earlier, and that mind Max is built around. And that's the idea that the base state of the brain is fight or flight. The brain is trying to keep us alive. The brain is naturally looking for the things that are gonna hurt us. That's not efficient.

7:19 That is not an efficient way to run. It's just like your body, you know it the body will you know, uh, store energy it stores energy in fat, but it's not optimized. And that's what we're trying to do with the mind, the same that you do with the body. You know, you have to work it out. It has to be optimized. And when we say that it's not running efficiently and being busy doesn't mean that you're actually. Busy. Isn't the problem. You can be busy and accomplish a lot of things if you're fine tuned and you're and you're running at a level you should. And that's what we really want to focus on with the mind, is bringing it into that thrive mode rather than just the survive mode, because when you are fighting yourself, which is what happens when you're operating in the Bay State, you're only seeing fear instead of fulfillment.

8:23 Yeah, you know, I kind of experience that what is it, fight or flight and the mind and the brain kind of like shuts down. I I can't even tell you what was going on, but I do know that they just said I, I, you know, had a breakdown. And. They said that the brain does that to protect itself and to protect the body, and I just like, you know, WHOA I couldn't believe it it's I always kind of tell this story, but not that often because it is private. But you know, when that happened, I had needed to go to the hospital. And when I went to the hospital, they took me to this special floor and they asked me questions that you know, I pretty much answered everything, and I couldn't remember the name of the president, so that within itself, they were talking about giving me medication.

9:22 And then I was sitting in the hallway and I started looking around because I wasn't sure where I was. And I looked, I'm like, oh my goodness, there's something wrong here. I don't belong here. I really don't belong here. I saw some really very strange behavior. I'm like, so I tried to get that down, go down. The elevator is locked. It's like, but I experienced. That, and. I, you know, it's kind of like, I'm not even sure what happened. I mean, I had a lot of things going on, but it just shut down. And I was like, oh my goodness. And so, you know, I went through medication and things like that, and I had to even like say, okay, I'm not doing this any longer.

10:13 I'm okay, I'm good I'm fine. And I had a friend that we used to sing together when we went to prisons, and he would call and sing to me every day. That really started bringing me back. But you know, at this point in time, you would never think that ever happened. I can't even think about how did that happen. I'm sitting there, what was I doing? But you know, it's one of those things I don't live with that. It's just an experience that I can tell someone none to tell someone else. You really need to protect your yourself and you're what you're doing and stop overdoing and and calm down, don't allow the stress. But okay, how is the subconscious beliefs shape our daily reality?

11:06 Well I'll take. This yeah, yeah, no, no, no, yeah yes. So so three things happen at the same time. One is that you know primitive mind as it doesn't said, which is your brain is trying to save you from those alligators, not alligators, but dinosaurs and and and you know, life threatening species when we were in the in those old, old old stone ages. So you have that because I guess we care to the cells, right, So you know it's it's like okay, run, this is it's danger. Right, So that's that. And then when you're young, what is the one thing that children here the most? What's the one word that children here the most? No? No, right, be careful, don't do that? What does that bring? That brings fear? And like why can't I do it? And also self doubt, right, like okay, she's this authority figure that I'm seeing, this big person saying no, what something's wrong? Right?

12:14 So we never really when we're young, and I mean I did my share of nose when I was raising my son. That that happens. But I think we have to kind of keep in mind that we are shaping this brain and it's no, it's gonna resonate with it forever. Because right now, whenever I'm doing something new, I hear that no, what if? What if this happens? But you know, we all we have that, all of us, right. And then there's there are those, you know, culture situations where some cultures are more don't do it, you know you shouldn't be doing it, Like for example, my culture, you're a girl, right, don't don't even go there. You're a girl, you this is your this is what you need to be doing. Or you're a guy, you have to be strong and don't cry. Right. So when you grow up in a situation like that, which all of us eighty percent of us are like no, or like those celves that are saying hey, be careful right, that shapes you.

13:13 That shapes you because normally we don't realize it unless it's too late, and then we don't combat that with no, you can do it right. We just learned that later on when when when when we are like in our thirties maybe the airlanes or like forties, and say why am I afraid? Okay, I am afraid? What's going on here? Right? That's when we kind of go through that sort of reflective scenarios and try and do something about it. But by that time we're set and then the work is harder. Unfortunately, that's also a time when everything kind of crashes. I don't know what exactly age it happened to you, but like it does. That's that culmination will sometimes of the nose and the fears and then the countering. You know, you're tired of fighting it without realizing what's going on, without the profit training, you're just continually trying to pick pick yourself up. By the bootstraps instead of you know, realizing that No, this comes from the way I was conditioned, just like she said.

14:17 Or sometimes you don't even know what you're battling. You just know something it's not right. When when I'm gonna share a little story, when I was uh in my twenties, I married somebody who was not We were not compatible, and I, just as you said I was, I knew something was wrong and I, you know, wascating. I was not happy. Something was off, but I didn't realize it was the marriage until one day I feigned and they took me to the emergency. Right. I thought I had a hat attack, but it was an anxiety attack. My body was telling me something is off, but my brain was telling me what nothing's wrong. Just you know, you get stronger, get tougher, nothing strong, just you know, little things here and there. So what if he calls you this name or that name, you got to be right. But whenever our body doesn't lie, our brain sometimes lies to us to protect us, but our the way we feel does not lie. And whenever you feel something like something is going wrong in your life, you have to sit down and kind of assess the situation because normally it is the body is right.

15:30 So when you recognize that something like that is occurring, is that when you should begin to try to reprogram your beliefs so that you can. Combat that well, preferably if you can do it earlier on and you don't reach hospitalization, you know that that is the ideal situation. But obviously, yeah, when if you reach there, you have to sit down and say, Okay, something is off, something's not aligning with my values and with my well bare I'm going against something. What is that? So that because if you don't know where you're going against, you cannot like really choose your suitable weapon, right, So you have to know where you're going against and say, okay, what's off here? What do I need to work on?

16:16 Yeah? Yeah, And especially when we have so much going on in your life, you generally don't we you know, sometimes we just really don't take the time to even take care of ourselves, no at all. We take over our jobs, we take care of our staff, we take care of you know, our church member, we take we never ask ourselves are we well? Especially this, especially our mind, especially our brain, especially stepping away from all the junk, and especially loving us I mean, that's the key to having a brain function well is seeing the amazingness in us and look at you know, I'm beautiful, I'm smart, I'm successful, look at all that I've accomplished, rather than you know what they think about you, you know what they said about you. You know, look at how you look, look at how like all those those those fears, those no's, Like Rashida talks about that, we were conditioned. And the hard part about it is, this is why it's it's fitness. Just like working out.

17:19 When you work out, those muscles hurt to grow, it hurts to change that thinking, and no one else is doing it. That's the other thing is most you know, ninety percent of news is negative because news knows that that's what people are drawn to. They know the psychology behind it. People's brain are unfit. They're not training their brains to love the good they're training their brain, or they're not training their brains. They're in that natural state of fear of what's going to hurt me, of no, instead of go. Yeah yeah, and I'll say yeah, that is a terrible place to be. Yes, believe me, I'm aware it's a terrible place to be. To always be afraid to do something because of what somebody else has said or what somebody else has done, and we allow others to influence us far more than what we should. It's okay to have a friend, and it's okay to have a good friend.

18:24 When I say a friend, somebody is going to tell you the truth. I even tell people when they say, oh, I want to be your friend, I'm not sure. Let me tell you what I like, because I'm not a friend that's going to lie to you or pump you up when you're doing something that I know and you both know we both know it's wrong, or you're going to blame somebody when you're a participant. Also, so I may not be your best friend because you want somebody to coddle you and tell you that you're doing everything right, and if you're not, I'm not going to tell that to you. I'm going to tell you the truth so that you can make changes so that you can really be who you're trying to be instead of pretending. Stop pretending to be this, just be this, be this so much easier you just get up in the morning, you be instead of like, oh wow, let me see what so and so would have been doing.

19:18 Yeah, but life, once you love yourself and you've trained your brain, like your brain is running efficiently and it's seeing the good in you, you can surround yourself with those friends who want to help you want that growth, you want that I that says, here's the opportunity for you to get better because you love you. But if you haven't learned to love you and your friend tells you the truth, then once again you you connect that with that no, that no and that fear. You know. So it's so crucial to take care of you. And that's one thing, you know, I think so many times it's important, you know. I tell people in my coaching.

19:58 I used to when I was doing there therapy. I used to tell them, you know, when someone tells you who they are, believe them. So many people do not believe people when they tell them who they are. And there's people that that that are good for you, and there's people that not are not And when they show you they're not, get away anyway. Wasn't an exception, it's the rule. Yeah, And I think we we take on the fact that because you can't get along with that person, something's wrong with you. No I learned, you know, after going through a whole lot of processing. Believe me, I've been around for a while. I've learned that if people don't enhance who I am and where I'm going, I really can't let them in my circle because it's just way too time consuming, too much, drawn, too much, you know, joy sapped out. No, I can't do that for you, but I'll tell you what. I'll give you a phone number that you can go. And that's what they do.

21:09 But I'm not the one that's. The one for that. And some people sometimes when some people are negative. For example, one of the most important people in my life from you know, my family, is a little bit towards that negativity. But first of all, it is her point of view, and first of all, second of all, she is operating from that her own fears and her own what if this doesn't work? You know, what is that din What if that dinosaur eats me? Right? So then she loves me. I know she loves me and she cares for me, but it's her way of protection, protecting me. But that's also her fear kind of coming through, and and that even though she doesn't mean it, and she's a wonderful person, but she's not elevating me. So I have to real whenever I'm talking to her not to ask certain things and say, hey, should I do this or do that?

22:04 Because if it's her white like, she say, don't do anything. Just stay in your room. The world is really horrible, right, So you know, I know not to ask you know, certain things. And as you said, you have to kind of surround yourself with people who are in alignment with where you're going on your value and what you believe in. Why did you too start working in this area of therapy, Not that it's not needed, oh my god, is it needed, But why did you decide to work in this particular area? Yeah, you want to go ahead, Well. I mean with me, the universe just put me there. To be honest, I tried to run. My dad was schizophrenic, my mom was borderline. They had substance abuse issues growing up, and they were I grew up in Washington State and back then, this was the eighties and the nineties, the facilities were scary, and you know, sometimes when when my dad would have to go to the hospital, it was it was kind of a traumatic experience as a kid, and I ended up, you know, working at a large hospital in the Midwest, and the only job that opened up once I finished nursing school was child adolessents psychiatry.

23:21 And I'm like, no, I get do this, you know, but hey, you know, the the universe has a plan and it did and I got there and it was just like, wow, you know, this is what I'm called for. And and just that you know, understanding kind of both sides. But then also, you know, I think sometimes when professionals haven't had personal experience with it, it blinds them a little bit. And and once again I think, and then when Rashida and I got together and she'd been a coach and you know her her most of her life a social worker and providing that support for people. We really when we formed mind Max, what really happened is we wanted solutions rather than just we've seen so many people just kind of spin their wheels and they're staying alive, but they're not thriving, you know. And that's really what we love about mind Max and being able to coach.

24:24 And it's why I stepped away from therapy because therapy is so important and you have to you have to work through those hard parts. But what about the next step, what about the solutions? What about the journey? You know, and we just we have a passion for It's happened in our lives. We've gone through stuff and we know that this brain fitness works. We know that you can move from fear to fulfillment and fun. And once you know that, you have to you have to want to share that. Yeah. And for me, I from East Africa, Somalia, and I went through that civil war which was horrendous, which kind of put me in a position where I needed to kind of always protect me. And also my parents, as wonderful, as amazing and loving they are, they're very protective also. So I heard a lot of that those nose and don't know it and like sit back right, or why did you do this? And so I learned a long time ago to kind of question myself or to be afraid or to say like hide right. So I went. I came to North America when I was about seventeen and all alone. And that does not get you anywhere but attract people who are going to use you and abuse you and take advantage of you. And I went. I went through my share of that, but then I always knew something was off right. I always knew something was not aligning with my values and something

25:58 was not healthy. Sometimes I would be crossing the road and the light's green, and I would question myself and say, is it green? Really? Can you cross? And then I would run when I was about eighteen or nineteen, because I was afraid that maybe my brain was playing tricks on me and I am wrong and the light is red. So I went through a lot of a lot of self reflection and like kind of thinking about why am I this way. That's when I became like thirty or actually I was thirty five. And then I also developed obsessive compulsive disorder clinically diagnosed, and that's that Sometimes they say it's it's the dowbting disease because you always doubt yourself.

26:41 Did I wash my hands? Oh no, you didn't go wash again? Right? So that's when I sat down with myself, obviously after the hospitalization and I became a single mother, and I noticed that I was struggling and the struggle that I was going through was in here because I was physically well, So what's going on here? Right? And why am I stuck? And why am I afraid because a lot of people are not afraid and they're doing well. And also when I watch celebrities Chris Brown for example, like if you watch him, he was dancing since the day he was twelve, and he had no fear, even though he went through some stuff, but that fear was not even present. And I noticed that people who are not fearful are successful. Or even the ones that say, Okay, I am afraid, but I'll do it anyways, like I'm gonna try anyways and push themselves, they succeed. And I wanted to live life. I wanted not to die without living and there were a lot of things that I wanted to do, meet people, you know, thrive, you know, maybe dance, maybe seeing, and that my joys were being stopped by that fear of like are you crazy? What's wrong with you? Sit down?

27:59 Yeah, And you know even gets to the point where we probably need to have parenting classes. That's one of the things. I mean, there's so many things we learned, but are they really important. I mean, we should be learning as financial literacy, we should be learning parenting, you know, we should be you know, learning investing. You know, those are things you from the time you get past eighteen, you're thrown into that arena and you're not prepared because they were so busy trying to get you to write a poem. I'm not a poet, That's so true. It's just you know, okay, I know that's your background, but that's not me.

28:45 So I've learned the counties, learned the counties of the state, every county of the state you live in. I mean, like, come on, I. Mean it was just like what for. You know, and. I mean it just needs to be a total revamp of the educational system. But I don't mean, like what's kind of happening now. I'm in a revamp of what are the really important things that carry you for the next seventy years. If you're not going to be doing this seventy years, well what am I learning it now for? It's not it's just a useless thing. Yes, And so I mean just going in and and maybe there shouldn't be so many knows. Well, my mom was the disciplinarian in our home, and she did a lot of nos because she, you know, uh, was just trying to protect us. Yes, But then my dad, he was the easy guy, and he was always yeah, you're good, you're great. You could do anything you want, and he would, you know, go go to the schools when I did my projects and stuff like that, staying there proudly and always encouraging me. So, you know, there needs to be a balance in the house.

29:52 You got to have somebody doesn't know, but you got to have somebody that says yes, yes, yes, And it's just a matter of you know, you know, just focus in your mind because you hear a lot of those. It does. It does bring a lot of doubt. Yes, you feel like you can't, but then you can also be like, okay, so why not at least I can try it. If it doesn't work, I just love on my mouth. Yes, And it's not something that something that is stuck in your head and you never take a chance on right, So a chance And speaking of the balance and the nose I have, we have a twenty one year old child. Dustin came into his life when he was about twelve or eleven. So I remember when I was young, especially from Somalia. Your partents will tell you go change that dress.

30:44 That's ugly. You look ugly in it, right, your hair does not look nice, Go go go take care of it. That's ugly. That was just a norm to say, because that tough. Love. Okay, go change it so you don't look so you look pretty, right. So that was my learned behavior to kind of support and advise the people that I loved. And sometimes when I think back how I communicated with some of the people that I liked so I could support them to kind of see their shortcomings or like what they're good at. I said a lot of that, and I regret and now with my son, because I did not want him to repeat this. I mean, he's gonna have his own mess, right, but I did not also want to add his mess to this, like, oh no, you look ugly, go change this. Whenever I see him when he was fourteen or fifteen, now he's two and one and he takes care of business. But like I see him, kind of his hair is messed up, and I would say, oh, wow, look at you, handsome.

31:46 I love your hair. Maybe add a little bit of antiphrase to your hair, like that would make it even shine. Wow, look at you instead of like, my god, what's wrong with you? You're like crazy. About it. He did the brain fitness and it was very strong and changing. One thing I wanted to circle back though that I think is very important about the education, you know, and this is something Rashida and I feel passionate about and I've also been working with. We have a curriculum at mind Max that we've been trying to get for the teachers to kind of start to process life through their power and potential rather than their pain, because teachers are really kind of out there by themselves.

32:30 Rashida also has her own site called Somali Navigators because here in in Minnesota there's a lot of uh Smali community, yeah community, and sometimes the navigation between the the native or the people that are yeah from Minnesota, the people that are from Minnesota you know recently, and the people that came from Somalia, there is. Lack of understanding, yeah, definitely. So trying to kind of bridge that east and west and really realizing that, you know, really everybody wants the same thing. We want love, we want you know, a house, we want to make money, we want to be able to laugh. But there's some things in you know, different cultures that that you know, can kind of put up roadblocks that make it look like it's something it's not so long story short, Getting that mental wellness and that joy optimization stuff into schools is really something I think.

33:35 I think we need to really focus on that because there's general things. But when you talk about necessities in school, you got finances that needs to be a necessity. It's not. Investing in my opinion, needs to be a necessity. It's not. And mental wellness skills needs to be a necessity and it's not. Yeah, oh yeah, and they you know, And like I said, nobody is really thinking about the fact. And I'm not even sure how they start. I guess they just people. You know, I don't you know. I don't want to even try to explain it because I don't know. But I know right now there are too many people graduating from high school or even going into college. I'm prepared because they have not been exposed to what reality is once you graduate from high school. And so when they go into you know, college or something like that, they have to have a tutor because they didn't get the right classes because they either weren't offered or they didn't know.

34:36 The counselors aren't there anymore because of funding, so there's no one. There's no guidance anymore. And a lot of parents didn't go to college, so they don't know either. So it's just really they're having a struggle and then having to deal with all of the negative things that they've heard through their parenting or other people, especially social media. They're not able to say this is real and this isn't real and taking care of their mental health. We've got some really tragic things happening out here in the streets right now. When you can just walk up and take someone's life and it doesn't. Like bother you.

35:17 There's something not working right in the brain, and there's something you fed in your brain that wasn't healthy. It wasn't something that would give you a neutral way of thinking. It was a hostility, it was anger, it was all these other things that trigger someone else in the brain instead of you know, you know what, I'm saying yes and just being able to you know how you say, reimagine that and you know what are some of the better skills that people can learn to stay mentally healthy. I mean just things they can practice or things that they can do.

36:02 Well. So what we teach is, as Deston said, that mental fitness right because no pay, no game, right, no gain, Like, if you are not going to the gym, as we said before, your muscles are not going to be as strong as theirs as you need them to be so that you're protected and taken care of and like so your muscles can carry your body. Right. So, first of all, the person has to be wanting to change and to imagine what could be once that's taken place. Then we need discipline, obviously, like every morning, instead of like saying, oh life is hard, say wow, I'm alive. Life is beautiful.

36:52 Look at the sunshine, right, Like, focus on the good things that are working for you. Right. And sometimes what I do some exercise said that I do myself is if I am questioning myself. Let's suppose oh my god, it's you know Angela's uh uh, you know radio, I'm nervous. What I do sometimes is just like a bird, you know, kind of expanding its wings. Like I do that and then I'm big, right, I am strong, Right, That's what I do. Yeah, powerful. So, But coming back to the brain fitness, it's it's consistency, discipline and wanting to reach there.

37:33 Wanting you have to be wanting to you have to know where exactly you're going and then how to reach there is where Dustin and I can help, right, give give pointers. One just general thing to exactly what Rashida was saying. But you know, I call it the three to one rule. For every one negative thought, you need to counter it with three amazing things about you, not about your dog, not about your girlfriend, not about your child, because unfortunately you could lose all those things. As horrible as that sounds, it has to be based in I'm a good basketball player, I'm good at computers, I'm good at art, I'm good at you know, there has to be three to one.

38:20 I actually used to tell my clients to make a list of fifty, which they hated me for that, but to just go to that because the negative will come naturally. It's the base state. It's going to come. Yeah, And what Rashida and I also do with our coaching sessions. And then now we have the Dean of Zen, which the Dean of Zen the AI bought is trained in years of our experience. It's been programmed and it will only go within the coaching that we taught it, but it is trained to help people get that brain fitness kind of like we were talking about before the kids and everything. Some people might not be as likely to or have the time right at first to take the time for their mental health. But this is an easy access number app. They just touch it and boom, you have a coach, uh, you know, a joy optimization mental wellness coach right right at your you know that's going to help you through the brain fitness techniques.

39:30 So since I had a chance to go out there and test that out, and I was like, whoa, this is getting ready to be my best friend. You can you demonstrate that? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we we We would love we would love to try it. Okay, that'd be great. Here we go. Am I going to do it? You want me to do it? Yeah, let's get the going first. Hey there, this is the deal of then your mindfulness support AI. Feel free to ask me about anything on your mind.

40:13 I'm listening. Use of this service is governed by our terms of service and no unauthorized us is allowed. I can also make some suggestions if you get stuck, just ask me. Hi. I sometimes feel that I don't fit in that I am an impostor at work and some circles, and I don't have that confidence to feel I fit in and I belong. Can you help me with that? Please? Absolutely, and thank you for sharing that with me. Imposter feelings are incredibly common, even among the most accomplished people.

40:58 The brain naturally for threats and can make us doubt our place. But that doesn't mean those thoughts are true. Before we dive into specific brain fitness techniques, can you tell me one thing that's going well for you at work or in your life right now? I have a good matter. I have a good husband. That's wonderful to hear. Having a supportive relationship is a real strength and a solid foundation for your confidence. Now, when those imposter thoughts show up at work, your brain is just trying to protect you from rejection or failure. It's not a sign you don't belong. Would you be open to trying a quick exercise where we list three achievements or moments at work that required skill or grit from you.

41:45 Yes. Great, Take a moment and think back. What are three things you've accomplished at work, big or small, that took effort, skill, or perseverance. They don't have to be awards or promotions. Maybe it was solving a tricky problem, helping a colleague or learning something new. What comes to mind first. That I am an amazing support to my clients. That's a powerful achievement. Being an amazing support to your clients shows empathy, skill, and dedication, qualities that are truly valuable in any workplace. Can you think of two more moments or strengths you've demonstrated at work, even if they seem small.

42:39 I supported my coworker with a task a couple of days ago. That's another great example. Supporting a coworker not only shows teamwork, but also your willingness to help others succeed, something every workplace needs. What's one more moment, skill, or strength you've shown at work recently? I had a great idea to solve a problem that our organization was facing. That's fantastic. Coming up with a great idea to solve a problem highlights your creativity and your value to the organization.

43:23 When your brain tries to tell you that you don't belong, these are the real life pieces of evidence you can use to counter that thought. How does it feel to reflect on these strengths and achievements? It feels really good. This helped a lot, and I'm not. I'm glad to hear that. It's amazing how quickly your brain can shift when you focus on your power and potential instead of your downs. Remember, every time and aster thought pops up, counter it with three positives about yourself or your future, just like we did. Now. Would you like another brain fitness technique to keep building that confidence?

44:11 I'm good for. Else you'd like to thank you I'm good for now. You're welcome, and remember your power and potential are always greater than your doubts if you ever need a boost. So I'm gonna really admit something. This made me think the three things that I that I did good, I swear to God. Guard you had to fass out. Oh yeah, I was gonna say, that's what I love when I was listening to it. I love that because it's rare when you have that negative thought that you actually go back and counter it with something positive. And we do far more positive than we do negative. But that one little negative seems to just overwhelm, like the only thing that exists when oh my gosh, see that just made my.

45:20 Day, the threat, that one threat. The brain grabs onto that one threat because it's worried about that instead of seeing the beauty, but it lessens the more you do it. And that's what you know. I this is much much less expensive than a therapy appointment or a coaching appointment or anything like that. So we're hoping that, you know, lots of people will will utilize it. The other thing I wanted to say. Is before you do change for that, give us the location, give us the website or how do how do they get in touch or be able to have this opportunity?

46:01 So you can get it at two places. We just the most updated one is www dot Dean of Zen dot a I so www dot d e A N O f z E N dot a I. Or you can also go to our original website www dot mindmax dot com. Okay, the d G one is is more central to the to the to the app though. And I did want to say one thing though, is what people forget. You can question this thing if you if say it for Shida hadn't come up with it. It will help walk you through. It will keep pushing you to find those good things about you. It will narrow it down like if someone's like, oh there's nothing good about me, well could you tell me about like it will it will, but surely you're there, Bill, you can yell at it. You can you know us at it, well you can, and it will continue to try to like go towards you know, because some people might be they might be anxious in that situation. And obviously we don't have all day to show the different examples, but it uh the with what what we put in from our experience. We spent hours and hours like entering assignments and recordings of of how we would approach it. And

47:31 then the the the software engineer that that that put it together for us is really a rock star. So oh great, yeah, yeah, I enjoyed it. And like I said, it's just something to motivate you to just keep going and and and to realize you you really are a gym. You are you know, wonderful, and you really are courageous and just you know, and I thought, oh wow, yeah, I need a friend like this. I all do. And I'm hoping because we have. I mean, like you said, the negative is there. We can always come up with things to put ourselves down or to make ourselves feel terrible, to make a part, yeah yeah, but to but to actually make our brains think about what we accomplished today, what we accomplished this week, what we accomplished through our through our years of living. Yeah, it just doesn't want to think about that. And uh yeah, one, we'll have to get get on my brain a little bit because we all know he's beating me up.

48:41 We also use it to supplement our coaching. So since we do weekly sessions for the monthly subscriptions, they get access to the AI also so that if in between a session there's something going on and they just need to reiterate what we've worked on or any of those things, they have it. Yeah. It's the way I say it is that it's it's food for the mind. Like when you around one o'clock, we crashed and we want snacks or food, and then we have to nourish our souls, our body. So this is kind of nourishing your brain. That's how I that's how I see it. Yeah, because getting hungry is.

49:24 Natural. We get there, you at really want. You don't need to work really hard to feel that feeling of like hey I need something to eat. Right, So the way I see this is whatever you feel, okay, something is off here, I need to or something's bothering me I I don't have the two hundred dollars to see a therapist. I don't know if I can talk to my mom about it. I need to get this soul food mind food that that I that could help me go. Yeah, good way to put it. Very good. Well, I'll tell you they've got the websites that they can contact. Yeah.

50:04 I think this is a great thing for them to be able to feed their minds and get that information and start thinking more positive so they can start thriving instead of just barely getting by and hating every day. I just want to thank you too for being here to help our audience maybe reimagine a life that's happy, filled with joy, fill with happiness, and they themselves are feeling positive that they can take on the world and accomplish just unbelievable things just by just reimagining what's going on. Thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you for joining us at a Sharp Outlook. We're here every Monday at eleven a m. Eastern time and eight am Pacific time, and you can watch the show know afterwards on YouTube and you can dial into k FO HD radio or talk for TV and watch it live.

51:12 So I hope that you will join us next week, but call in this number because I know you're having negative thoughts just like everyone else. But let's start thinking about some of the positive things and talk with this uh uh then of uh Den, of Dean of Zen, Yes, yes, thank you, and whatever you do, let's just stay informed. I want to thank you for joining us on a Sharp Outlook. We have been informed and energized to take the next steps. We have posted links to websites and videos to learn more on today's topic. Please join us again next week for another out provoking conversation right here on k for HD radio and talk for TV. Listen to the podcast on all the podcast apps, and until next week, stay informed.