Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - The Power of Sucking at Stuff: Why Struggle Leads to Mastery | Clutterbug Podcast #268

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

Suck at something? Perfect. That means you're on the right track. In this episode, we declutter the whole “if you’re not good at it, quit” mindset. Struggle isn’t a weakness—it’s the way forward. If you’ve ever felt like giving up, this podcast is for you. Let’s turn failure into FUEL.       You can find more Clutterbug content here: Website: http://www.clutterbug.me YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clutterbug TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clutterbug_me Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clutterbug_me/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Clutterbug.Me/   #clutterbug #podcast #mondaymotivation  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are you ready to do a big deep dive into the art of sucking at stuff? Let's change this age-old narrative that you have to be naturally good at something in order to succeed, or that's what we should really be leaning into. I'm here to tell you that I think being bad at something, having something in your life that's a real struggle for you is actually the secret behind mastering it. Hey, clutterbugs, welcome back to the clutterbug podcast. Before I jump in, I really want to encourage you to do something right now that's going to make you proud of yourself. Do something small. Catch up on the dishes, maybe go for a walk, declutter something. So at the end of our time together, you're going to have learned something. I promise you're going to be motivated and inspired, but also have something.

checked off that never-ending list. So you can be like, I'm amazing and look what I got done. So don't you dare just passively listen to this? It's time to move mountains, my friends. Get up, grab a bag, grab a cloth, fill that sink with soapy water, do something. And let's get stuff done together. Last week, I had the privilege of going to the first ever neurodiversion 2025 event. It was a conference for people who are neurodivergent. So a lot of people with autism and a whole lot of people with ADHD came together to celebrate our uniqueness. And this is the first time I went to an event where I felt like I could actually take off my mask, where I could honestly be myself in a way that I have spent my entire life trying to hide from the rest of the world.

because it's embarrassing, I think. I'm going to give you some examples. So I can never remember anyone's name ever. I'm really bad with names, even people that I've known my entire life that I talk to on a regular basis. There is something in my brain where I just, I really struggle with names. And I have to create stories for people in order to remember their name.

and almost everyone that I met shared this same struggle. They would say things like, I'm never going to remember your name. I'm so sorry, and I don't even know how to like what to tie it to. So I'm just going to have to keep looking at your name tag. And we were all like writing our names even bigger on our name tags because we all related to the same thing. We struggled to find the restaurant after the conference was done because none of us were great at reading maps.

Our brain just was not good at following directions, which again was so validating and so beautiful. All these similar struggles made me feel seen and loved and like I could honestly be myself. And when I was able to take off the mask and just enjoy, I was able to really look at people differently because I wasn't worried about myself and how I was appearing to everyone else, I was really able to tune into those around me, which is also something I suck at. I tend to be, I don't want to say self-absorbed, but I'm constantly thinking about how I'm being perceived and if I'm being annoying to people and I've got to watch what I say so I don't say inappropriate things. I spend a lot of time making sure that I'm not being too much that I often don't see, really see and hear and listen the people around me.

So being able to unmask and let my freak flag fly allowed me to really tune in to people around me. And it was so beautiful because here are some observations that I made. I want to share observations that I made. I also want to share some of the greatest like takeaways that I learned from people, the best tips and hacks and just ideas that came from that conference. And I also want to talk about this myth of natural talent and natural ability and how it really is awesome to suck at things sometimes. There is real power in being bad at stuff. Okay. So some of the things I noticed in this community was that almost everyone who came to this,

event was a very successful entrepreneur. So we have a group of individuals who struggled to remember names, who have no idea where they are, where they're going. Almost everyone was late for something, even the speakers were late, wandering around constantly having to have reminders and check their phone so that they knew what was going on. And yet we have very, successful people who are earning great money running businesses. What? Make this make sense, friends. Almost everyone that I talked to who was an entrepreneur struggled in school. The high majority of them actually didn't even finish high school or even the ones I met a few who did go to university and who got really good grades but said they were always kind of in trouble or they had these

little things that made them feel like they were just bad at life. Bad at being a friend, a bad person. There was a lot of shoplifting, okay? There was a lot of talk of chronic shoplifting amongst these people, which I found really funny. My point is, I started thinking while listening to their stories and getting to know these people, wow, what makes them different? Why is it that these people who had failed so often and so many times in their youth and felt broken and damaged and like they weren't good at anything? How did they become so great at these different things? And there was a wide range of different businesses that they owned and ran. And I think the underlying connection there was, in fact, the struggle, was in fact that they were bad at things and they had to overcome.

So let's talk about the myth of natural talent. We are all fed this story, you know, people who are just born good at things, people who are just prodigies, you know. They just, they don't know. They were just, you know, naturally organized. So they ran an organizing business or they were just really good at music. So they became this musical prodigy. And I think that that's actually true in a lot of cases that there are people who are born with natural abilities and talent. And they're able to lean into that and keep practicing and create these incredible talents and skills and business or careers, but we don't hear enough about the stories of people who really sucked at things and kept going anyways. I cannot tell you how many times I've heard the phrase,

well, maybe that's just not your thing. Try something else. Or it's okay to not be good at everything. Don't worry about that. Focus on this thing that you are good at. We're told if we're struggling, that that's a sign we're not meant to do something. And I actually think the opposite is often true. Because when you struggle at something and you keep trying, you're learning, you're adapting, you're building new skills, you're finding shortcuts and other ways to do the thing instead of just the traditional way to do it.

your, it's called like earned expertise. And what I also think is really fascinating about struggling with something and having to figure out how to do it better is it gives us this incredible innate ability to now help others who are also struggling because we've been there. Not only are we relatable, but we have tools and strategies and techniques, a lot of them, that can now be applied to other people to help them, but also can be applied to other areas of our life where we're also struggling. So if you suck at keeping your house clean, if you suck at organizing, if you suck at cooking,

if you suck at managing your money, I am here to tell you that this does not mean these are things you should avoid doing or give yourself permission to just me never do. And in fact, these can be skills that you can master in a way that someone who is naturally good at it couldn't even possibly imagine. You've probably heard of the concept of growth mindset. This was developed by a psychologist named Carol Duet. And the core of growth mindset is that the more you do something, the more you grow in one, area, you kind of grow everywhere. So when, basically, when you admit, I'm not good at this, but I'm going to

keep working at it, I'm going to lean into the things that are hard. Your skill grows and your ability grows in that area, but it also grows in every other area too. This is that idea of growth mindset. it's shifting in your mind to it's the act of getting better and practice and working towards something that's hard that's going to make me better. And the byproduct of that is that these tools that you're learning can be then applied without even realizing it to like a bunch of other areas too. And I've seen this in my own life. So I don't have to quote a bunch of, I can just speak from personal experience. I don't have to quote a bunch of studies for you to say that when I overcame the

adversity, when I overcame failure by just trying and not letting doing something badly or blowing up in my face, stop me from trying a different way. Those are the things in my life that have had the biggest impact and turned into my biggest passion allowed me to help other people in ways that I never could possibly have imagined. And also, when I focused on really overcoming the thing I struggled most with, a byproduct of that was like other areas of my life improved too because of these adaptable skills that I was learning. So here's the crazy part. There is research that says, Those who struggle to learn something or struggle to figure something out actually retain it better

and understand things more deeply than the people who were able to just pick it up easily or naturally. So if you have someone who's not good at something and someone who just is like naturally good at it, and they're both doing the same activity, yet let's use cleaning the house as an example. what studies have shown and research has shown, the person who perseveres and keeps trying to figure it out, even though they're bad at it, will eventually actually have a deeper understanding of this. And they'll be able to retain that information better because they've done the work to learn. And we know this. We know repetition is the mother of skill.

We know practice makes perfect and all of that. but I think it goes deeper than that. I really do. And I think allowing ourselves to problem solve, allowing ourselves to say, okay, I'm really bad at this, but I'm going to figure a way of being better, not the best, but better, builds grit. It allows us to come up with hacks and shortcuts. and it allows our brain to kind of rewire these neuro pathways that then not only are we better at this thing, but we're able to be better at all things. There are a lot of famous examples.

Okay, friends, there's like Michael Jordan. He was cut from his high school basketball team. He, like, struggled to make his high school team turned into the greatest basketball player of all time. Yeah, obviously he had some natural basketball ability and he was tall, but there's nothing. You can't discount work ethic and the fact that he had to try different techniques and practice different and think outside the box in order to really hone and develop that skill. J.K. Rowling had dozens and dozens and dozens of rejections, right, before Harry Potter. Albert Einstein, they say he couldn't speak fluently and until he was nine. And all of his teachers were like he's special needs and he's never going

to amount to very much. They wanted to put him in like special schools. There's so many examples of people in history that we look at as the great teachers, the great leaders, the great entrepreneurs who in fact really struggled with the thing that they're known for being best at. super, super fascinating. And I have absolutely seen this in my own life. Obviously, organization is the thing that I struggled the most with. I couldn't run my day, let alone run a business. And yet here I am doing this through practice, through grit, through not being afraid to fail. But then taking that and applying it to other areas of my life, it isn't, my husband laughs at me all the time. He's like, of this delusion of grandeur. I want to tell you another story before I get into really awesome stuff

I learned at this conference. I'm going to share the awesome tips that I learned from this conference that I think you can apply to your own life. But I also want to share this because I want to inspire you because I know. I know you're listening to this podcast for a reason. I know there are things that you're like, oh, I wish I was better at this. Why is this hard for me? Why am I not good at this? And I want to motivate and inspire you and say, it's a good thing you suck at this. It's actually a good thing. Because you struggling to get this is exactly what's going to help you get it in a way that you will be better that if you were just naturally good at it.

And more than that, more than that, you got to learn to crawl. at this thing. Then you can learn to walk. Then you're going to learn to run. But now you're going to have an innate ability to run while carrying others. Learning a different way to do this, learning a way to be good at something that you're naturally bad at, not even good, better, learning a way to be better at something that you're naturally bad at, it will give you the ability to help other people. who struggle to, whether it's your kids, your husband, your best friend, your family. It teaches you strategies and techniques and a different way of thinking and doing that now you're able to pass on that information to other people. And even more than that, these skills

of thinking outside the box, this practice of like, well, this doesn't work. I'm going to try this. Or I did this and failed. Oh, guess what? It wasn't that big of a deal. I love. learned. I learned that that doesn't work for me. I'm going to try something else. Repeat, repeat, repeat, let go with that fear of rejection and doing things wrong through practice at failing and sucking. Now translates to all the other areas of our life, too. We're a little bit braver. We're a little bit more willing to try new things, to take risks, to fail, and that's okay. And it doesn't hurt. And it doesn't make us, you know, lay in bed at night. and hate ourselves, we're able to let all of that go. And that is true growth mindset. That is when we

really are able to step into this incredible life that just knocks our own socks off at all the things we're able to accomplish. That comes through sucking. That comes through failing. that comes from learning, that comes from dusting yourself off and trying again. Instead of, oh, I'm not good at that. I'm, I'm, I don't want to try that again because I don't want to, I don't want to allow myself to be bad. It's allowing yourself to be bad and embracing the fact that you're bad. That is the true gift.

That is the true spark. That is the true hero, origin, story, my friend, that's it. That's your hero origin story. So I can only, again, speak from my own life, but growing up, I was bad at everything except being bad. I was the only thing I was good at. I was bad at everything. I didn't finish high school. I was in and out of jail and then went to prison.

I couldn't manage my money. I claimed bankruptcy. I couldn't remember to pay a bill. I couldn't remember people's names. I was fired from almost every single job I had ever had, including like fast food, restaurant, working at retail stores because I just couldn't do things. I couldn't follow simple directions. I struggle to read instructions and comprehend. I have, which I've learned at the age of 40, an actual mental disability. that's what I have. I've seen my brain scans. It's not pretty. My prefrontal cortex is is much smaller than the average brain. There's a lack of blood flow. There are real mental issues going on, okay? Which I've had to learn to work around, which I've had to learn to adapt. I've had to learn different ways. I've had to

learn coping skills and get tools to help me overcome all the stuff that I'm just so naturally bad at, okay? I'm so bad at it. But the side effect of that is I was able to get good at things like organizing. I'm not the best organizer. I promise you I'm not. But here's what I was able to do. I was able to understand why other people struggle and help them come up with solutions. to overcome it. I was able to see it differently, not going from A to B, but now I see there's 50 million paths to get to the same result, and I'm able to share those paths with other people. And I noticed patterns. And I developed the four organizing tendencies, which was really just noticing a pattern because I was like, I refuse to believe that other people are messy.

I know that they just think and do differently because that's what was happening. with my life. It forced me to do things differently and think outside the box, because inside the box I couldn't just do it the way other people did it. I failed every time. So I overcame that. And then that trickled into other areas of my life. And my husband makes fun of me. He says that I have delusions of grandeur, which I don't, because I just look like, I suck at everything. But also, I honestly think, but I could figure that out. Because I spent so long sucking at everything and then figuring it out. And eventually I would get to a point where like, oh, I can actually do this.

I just assume I can do this for everything. Because everything was so hard. Because I failed at so many things and found a way to overcome them anyways. I've built this grit and resilience inside of me that it isn't that I think I'm great at everything. It's that I know I can suck at everything and get better, that I can find a way of turning all the things I'm bad at into things I'm good at because I've done it so many times. It isn't delusions of grandeur, and I want to tell you what happened last night, but it is maybe delusional, okay, a little bit. last night I was my favorite thing to do right now is on chat gtp I ask chat gtp to give me a an example of someone with medical symptoms and then I diagnose what's wrong with them so I was

laying in bed and I was like I was nailing them every time I'm like oh graves disease and and like I was I was nailing based on their symptoms what medical condition they had because this is something I'm really into and I like research this all the time. It's ridiculous. It's just a weird hobby of mine. And then I thought, oh my gosh, I looked over at my husband laying beside me and I said, could I just be a doctor? Like, is there a way? I don't have to like, I only have a grade 10 education. I dropped out of high school. But could I just take a test or something and they give me a medical degree? Like, honestly, I was wondering if this was a thing. I know you can take the bar exam.

maybe and just become a lawyer. Like maybe this isn't an actual thing. And he laughed at me. He was like, yeah, you could take the MCAT, I guess, if you want. Like, yeah. And he was saying this coming from a like a joking place. Like, oh, just take the MCAD exam, which I had never heard of. And I was like, ooh, I can't just take the MCAT exam and just like be a doctor cool. Two completely different ways of thinking, he's like, that's never going to happen. You're ridiculous. And me thinking, yeah, that's totally in the realm of possibility until I looked at some MCAT practice test and they're speaking a different language and you actually have to study a lot and know a bunch of ridiculous things and be like uber crazy smart. So that is not happening. But that thought process that I have

of, oh, I could probably figure this out most of the time not becoming a doctor. but a lot of the times has actually worked out when I was in the same place a year ago laying in bed with my husband and I looked over at him and thought and said, I think I want to become a firefighter. I think this sounds really fun. And he jokingly said, yeah, you should just apply and like go for the test and see if you could become a firefighter. He was being sarcastic thinking there's obviously absolutely no way that could ever happen. That's so out of the realm of possibility. But I heard, I got nothing to lose. Let's figure this out. This is totally in the realm of possibility. Because I had failed so many times at so many other things that felt impossible. And in that instance,

it worked out. It took grit. I failed a lot. I did a lot of embarrassing things. I was really bad at being a firefighter in the beginning, but every day I got better. I don't mean to be like over here, like, look at me, and I'm so great. Gross. That is not what I'm saying. What I want to encourage you to do is look at your own life and the things you suck at differently. If you struggle to keep your house tidy on a daily basis, I promise you that this is something that could be your greatest strength. There are ways. There are shortcuts. Do it different. Allow yourself to fail. Try a million different things. And you're going to wake up one day and realize, dang, I am really good at managing a home without it feeling hard. I am really good at decluttering. In fact, I am so good at letting go. I now have

the ability to help other people let go to. Really bad at working out or eating healthy, man, that gives you something special because if you really want it and you overcome it and you learn these little tricks and little ways to work it into your schedule without feeling hard or things that you can eat that still are yummy and delicious but, you know, are healthy for you, now you have the ability to help others. And you feel really proud of yourself that you've overcome this. And you've learned skills and tools and you've built muscle memory and new neuro pathways that mean other areas of your life that you suck at too.

You're going to see that you're naturally getting better at those areas too. So instead of turning away from the struggle, instead of making excuses of why it's okay that you're bad at it or why you don't have to try, I am here to tell you that it's the trying and the failing and getting up and trying again. That's the secret. That is actually a good thing. Friends, I want to inspire you to lean into the things in your life that feel hard instead of running away from them because you're going to have to learn to crawl

and then walk and then before you know it you're running and you're going to wake up one day and realizing that not only are you running but now you're carrying a whole community with you and yet it never feels hard you actually enjoy the process Okay, quick break from our sponsors and then I'm going to get into all the incredible things I learned from these amazing people who have overcome huge failures and adversity in their lives. I have to take a second to thank Factor for sponsoring today's podcast. I really want to eat healthy, but it's tough. I'm busy, especially at work for lunch.

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Use the code clutterbug 50 off for 50% off your first box plus free shipping. That's clutterbug 50 off at factor meals.com slash clutterbug 50 off. There were so many incredible speakers at this ADHD conference, but I want to talk about some of the ones that stood out the most to me and things that they said that really resonated and I thought, I'm going to write this down. I forgot to write it down, but I thought this and share it with my clutterbug podcast friends. I forgot to write them down. So we're just winging it here. But the first speaker that really stood out to me was Jessica McCabe from How to ADHD. She runs a really successful YouTube channel. You've probably

watched her. She's like, hello brains. my gosh, she's the cutest human being and has so much knowledge about ADHD. But she recently became a new mom. And all of the struggles that she had with maintaining a tidy home were amplified. Because she had strategies in place. They didn't work for the fact that now she's exhausted. She has postpartum depression. You know, she has another human being that she has to take care of.

They were kind of set up for her best days. Does this make sense? Like her systems to catch her and make life easier when she was doing well. And the days that she was doing bad, she could spend days in bed. And then when she came out of that, she could go right back into those good days and kind of catch up. But now every day felt to her like a bad day. Every day she felt just exhausted and like she was struggling to keep up.

and her systems were not designed for that. So what she said that really had an impact for me was that you have to design your home for every version of yourself. There are going to be days where you wake up early and you're feeling motivated and you're doing the dishes or you do have that little zest and you're keeping up on things. But there are also days where you're dragging and you, I mean, it's hard to even shower, let alone do the dishes. We have to set up our home to show up for us and support us for every version that we are, the good days and the bad. And I thought that that was such a

beautiful way of looking at things. And she gave a great example of this. And that was, her bedrooms are on the top floor. And then she has a floor where it's like her kitchen living room and that's where the glasses are and her dishes. And then her downstairs floor is where she does her work, where her office space is. And so she would always forget to drink water and she'd be really, really thirsty. So she went ahead and gave herself like a water jug on the main floor and on the downstairs floor. But even though she wanted to drink, her glasses were all the way up the stairs. So every time she wanted a drink, she'd have to go all the way up the stairs and then all the way back down. Some days this was no problem. A lot of the days it was a

problem. And she would often like give herself water bottles, but they'd be left all over the house, especially upstairs, right? So she was chronically thirsty. And she thought, how can I adapt my home to work on the days that is a good day and on the days that's a super bad day so that I'm not going without drinking. Because if you have ADHD, you know that you forget to drink water a lot. I don't know why. It's like a bizarre thing. So what she decided on was she was going to have a box. Like it's literally a diaper box that she put beside the water jug. Because the idea of bringing all the glasses down didn't really make sense because she would need the glasses for dinner and when she was actually not in the office space. So bringing all the glasses down didn't make sense. Bringing one or two

glasses also didn't really make sense because like she said, she now have just like glasses all over the place and then that wasn't really working. So what she decided on was having a diaper box where she would put a bunch of reusable water bottles and it was a portable solution so she could walk it around and gather the ones that she's already used. In some days on her best days, she would remember to put those water bottles back in the box beside the water jug. But she was also including paper cups beside there for her worst days when she wasn't remembering to gather the extra water bottles when when it wasn't an ideal day and she just needed a glass like a drink and she wasn't putting her mouth under the spout she could just grab a paper cup and there was also a

garbage right there so yes does that feel wasteful to like use these paper cups when she had perfectly good glasses or reusable water bottles. Yeah, but that wasn't an everyday solution. That was only on the bad day. She was adapting her systems for the good, the bad, and the middle days. And it's not just about how are you going to put paper cups or water bottles beside the water jug. It's everything. On the days that we just can't do the dishes, can we have a paper plate system that's like close by, maybe even in the same cabinet for those days? Can we set up reminders and systems that go off even on the days where we don't need them? Because there'll be a lot of days we don't need them.

But the days that we do, they're there to catch us. How can we design our home and design our organization and design our systems? for the good and the bad day because here's here's the truth and she said this and this resonated with me 99% of the time the days that we're organizing something the days that we're organizing our clothes or we're setting up a new system for our entranceway those are our best days those are the days that we're feeling motivated those are the days that we're feeling energize. Those are the days we're actually going to use that system. But two days later, we may be at our worst. Is that system still usable then? So on the days that we're creating

systems and we're organizing and we're decluttering and we're actually catching up on our dishes, let's think about how we can also create a system to catch us on the bad days. So make whether it's organizing something or like we're having, you know, we're setting up hooks and keys in our entrance way. Let's think about, is this still useful on our worst day? Or how can we also create a little bit of an adaptation so it does work on our worst day? How can we do this? Because I think this is such a really, I've never heard of anyone else talk about this before, but it's such a unique but also real life problem that we don't even know that we have. We do the work on the days that we're feeling our best and we're setting up our systems

and we're setting up our strategies and our organization and the flow of our home on our best days for our best days, but most of the days are not our best. So let's think of it differently. Let's think of how in that moment of our best, how we can also make sure this works for us at our worst. Because we are all those versions of ourselves. And there's nothing wrong with that. But our home should be a tool to work with us, not against us, and catch us no matter how we're showing up that day.

So I thought that that was really beautiful. I wanted to share that with you. because, yeah, it hit me. I was like, man, she's a genius. Another session that really struck a chord with me was the hilarious Carla Star. Carla is an author. She is a definite ADHD, or she is crazy, and I love it, and I'm here for it. But she did to talk about really using AI in a way that's outside the box and using it as a personal assistant, a friend. And this is something that I had never really thought of before. I was you, I use, I use chat. You guys always yell at me because I would say it wrong. I use chat. Let me look,

GPT. There, I had to read it because I was called like GTP or something. I use I use chat GPT almost every day, but I use it sort of as a brainstorming tool or I use it as a very like work professional tool. And what Carla said is it's time for us to. to embrace this more as like a friend and a personal assistant. So she encouraged us to actually ask the bot, the AI, for help with just everyday life. Like, hey, I'm really struggling to get started today, get motivated. I need to do my dishes, but I don't feel like it got any advice for me. Or I really want to organize my closet, but I am like not a lot.

a person to keep it tidy. I'll do it once and I'll never stick with it. It's really hard for me to put my clothes away. Take a picture of your closet, upload it to chat, and ask if it has advice for your personal space. Like, what? I had never, ever thought of this. She gave this hilarious example of how she uses chat GPT. She was on a first date and she went back to the person's place. They went to the bathroom. She took a picture of their bookshelf and asked AI to like use, because it could read, right? It can read all the titles in the bookcase to give her like an outline of what this person is like based on their book choices. Like what do they like? Does it have, does it have any insight and their personality. And she said, go home and do this to your own bookshelf. And I did.

And AI was like, you, this person really wants to learn more about organization and self-improvement. But they also love YA romance. So it just gave this huge like breakdown of me, which I thought was really hilarious. And you got to try this. But also, what a clever way to think outside the box. of using AI. So since I've come back from this, I've actually been asking AI and talking to AI differently than I was before. I've said things like just yesterday I put in, I'm really struggling. I want to create licensing for clutterbug, but I have no idea where to start. Can you help me with just some step by steps of what I should do? Are there different programs I should use? Is there somebody who's doing this kind of in my same industry that I can follow? And they

laid it out for me, the AI, laid it out for me. I'm also writing a book right now and I'm struggling with that and I just said, I'm really struggling. Is there some way that I could just talk and it records it and kind of organizes my thoughts for me? And it gave me, like chat gave me all of these different programs I can use that I could try and exactly how to do it and really worked as a really good friend helping me problem solve. So I want you, I mean, chat, GBT is free. I want you to think about using this a little differently as a friend reaching out to it in those times that you're just not sure what to do, where to start, upload a picture of your room, upload a picture of your closet, upload a picture of your dishes, ask it for advice. You can even, someone did this months

ago and they sent it to me. They literally said, chat, GPT, pretend you are cast from Clutterbug. I'm really struggling with my bedroom. Can you give me some examples of things that I can do to start getting organized for my organizing style? And it gave advice as if it was me. And it was spot on, friends. I'm not suggesting you replace all your friends with a robot or AI. That is not what I'm saying, but I am saying that there are this incredible tool that's free, that's available for us that can help us think of things differently, get a new perspective, help us, you know, come up with steps to stop the overwhelm and just, you know, also be fun and interesting. I uploaded a picture of Joe and I, and I asked chat who was cuter, who was hotter.

And it lit, this is what it said back to me. It said, Nice try girl. And it spelled it G-U-R-L. It said, I'm Switzerland over here. And then dot, dot, dot, but you do have a better smile. Because Joe wasn't smiling. And I just thought, it was hilarious. It made me laugh. It served no purpose in my life. But it did show me that there isn't just one way to use this tool, that we can bounce ideas off of it, get inspired, and think outside the box when it comes to using this incredible, powerful, amazing thing out there to improve our lives in really interesting ways. So I use it to help menu plan. I will tell it what ingredients I have in my fridge, like I've got some chicken breast, I need to come up with

something quick, I don't have a ton of vegetables, but I do have pasta. Are there any ideas? You could take a picture of your fridge and tell them some ingredients and say, can you help me come up with a quick 15-minute recipe for dinner using what you see? Or take a picture of your pantry. You will be amazed. I've asked it to help me find the best time for me to work. out by uploading my schedule. I have asked it just everything, everything, some crazy things. And some things hit and some things don't, but what an incredible tool at our disposal that I really think we should use more. And so I'm so grateful to Carla for showing me that. She also uploads like photos of text chats and says, is there a better way to reply to this person who I think

is being crazy in a non-confrontational way. I had never thought of uploading photos of things to chat and getting it to give advice. Just so freaking brilliant. Definitely give this a try. And the final thing that I want to talk about that I learned that I feel like maybe I already knew, but it really reinforced it from this conference was the power. of community, the power of not feeling alone. They say that humans are meant to be in a group of like 150 people. And unfortunately, the internet, where we're bombarded by millions of people, can sometimes, like, disregulate us in some ways. Like, we're not sure where our tribe is. We're not sure where we belong. It feels like should we be belonging to all of these different types of people

and therefore I don't feel like I belong in any. And also a lot of us are isolated and don't have 150 people and don't have close friends or a lot of friends and family that we can really reach out to. So we feel lonely despite having access to the internet of millions of people. So the idea of finding a community was something that was hammered home over and over and over for me. And it can be an online community, but like a niche one. So I feel like the clutterbug community is so beautiful. And what is so awesome is a group of women from the Take Your House Back course. They had signed up for the Take Your House Back course years ago. And And within that Take Your House Back Facebook group, they then went and created a accountability,

body doubling Zoom group on their own. And here's what it looks like. It is a Zoom meeting that is open 24-7 and anyone can join at any time. And usually when you go in, there's at least a couple people in there. And if there isn't, you go into the Facebook group and you say, I'm joining, I'm jumping on the Zoom. I'm cleaning my kitchen if anyone wants to join me. And they opened up this and I saw it. I saw this open Zoom group. There were people just like working from home. There were people who weren't even showing their face on camera. It was just like in the background and

they were doing the dishes. So these ladies have been part of this Zoom accountability body doubling group for years, had never met in person, had all come to this conference and met for the first time here, and it felt like they had been best friends their whole lives. They knew each other, they supported each other, they knew everything about their friends and family, and all of them had gotten to a place where they were in sort of maintenance mode in their homes because they were part of this community of like-minded people doing the same thing together. They had grown. They had found success.

And now they were mentoring other people in this group who were just coming in. It was so freaking beautiful to see. And it also made me so grateful for the clutterbug community, but also realizing how there are different groups in my community that I can join, whether it's online or in person. Maybe I joined this beekeeping. There's a beekeeping. group and I want to be a beekeeper so bad. Maybe I reach out to them and join that and start getting to know other people who are like-minded in my community. I think there is real power in that,

not only so we don't feel lonely, but so we grow and develop skills and get better at things together. There is real power in body doubling and in accountability and it's okay to ask for help and it's okay to reach out to people and say, I really want to get better at this. Do you want to do it with me? What groups can you join? Who can you ask for help? What can you do to grow your little community and be a part of something bigger than yourself? I'm encouraging you. I want this to be your homework. Think of a group that you can join, whether it is an online group or it's like your local horticultural society. I don't know. Something. There's something in your community. Go for cooking classes. Create a little like friend group there. Get out of your comfort zone,

friends. We need people. We need people to support us and we need people to grow alongside of us to really reach our full potential. It's the it's the peace that. It's the, is probably the most important. You need a village. So do I. So let's go out and find ours today. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you're feeling inspired. I hope you're proud of whatever you got done today because you're freaking amazing, my friends. Also go take a picture of your bookshelf and ask chat GPT what it says about you. How fun. Do this whenever all your friends or family going to the bathroom. Take a picture of their bookshelves too. Fun ways to use AI.

Love you guys so much, and I'll see you next time.