High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 43: Love, Resilience and Thriving in Difficulties with WYSIWYG Juice Founder, Kristi Schuck

Episode Date: May 4, 2016

Kristi Schuck, founder and co-owner of WYSIWYG Juice Company, shares her story of resilience and how to see the opportunity in every difficulty. It was through her husband’s diagnosis with Stage 4 Colon Cancer that they both discovered the power of juicing. Wes was given only 4 short months to live, but thrived in this life for over 3 years because of juicing and a caring and loving environment. In this powerful interview on the one-year anniversary of Wes’ passing, Kristi talks about how to thrive in difficult situations, choose love over fear, and develop a practice to maintain an optimistic and resilient mindset.  For more information about WYSIWYG Juice Company, visit: www.wysiwygjuice.com, connect on Facebook at: facebook.com/wysiwygjuice or on Twitter @WysiwygMkto.

Welcome to High Performance Mindset with Dr. Sindra Kampoff. Do you want to reach your full potential, live a life of passion, go after your dreams? Each week we bring you strategies and interviews to help you ignite your mindset. Let's bring on Sindra. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. This is your host, Sindra Kampoff. And thank you so much for coming today. I am grateful that you're here, ready to listen to an interview with Christy Shook. Now, before I introduce Christy, I want to tell you a little bit of why I chose to interview Christy on this podcast. You know, the title of this podcast is called The High Performance Mindset. And to me, what that means is reaching your greater potential.

And I say your greater potential and emphasize that because it's yours, not anyone else's. And while reaching your greater potential, a resilient and optimistic mindset is key. And throughout various episodes of this podcast, we've talked about how to develop this type of mindset that's resilient and optimistic, because that's the key to thrive in sport, business, and in life. And that's what the focus of this podcast is all about. Now, I chose to interview Christy because what I have witnessed Christy do is despite difficulties, she has maintained and developed an optimistic and resilient mindset. Now Christy

Shook is the founder and co-owner of Wissy Wig Juice Company. Wissy Wig stands for what you see is what you get. And in this podcast episode, she shares her story of resilience and how to see the opportunity in every difficulty. And it was actually through her husband's diagnosis with stage four colon cancer that they both discovered the power of juicing. Wes was given only four short months to live, but thrived in his life for over three years. Now in this powerful interview on the one-year anniversary of Wes's passing, Christy talks about how to thrive in difficult situations, how to choose love over fear, and how to develop a practice to maintain an optimistic and resilient mindset. And since Wes has passed, she has used this incredible

difficulty and turned it to an opportunity to start Whiskey Week Juice Company and impact thousands of people throughout the world. Now, I'd love to hear what you think about this interview, and I'd love for you to reach out to Christy you can do so in several different ways I'd encourage you to do so on Twitter it's probably the easiest way if you're on Twitter you can tag me mentally underscore strong and you can also tag the Wissy Wig Juice Company it's Wissy Wig Mankato so it's I'll spell it for you it's W-Y-S-I-W-Y-G and then M-K-T-O. You can also find this on my show notes on my website. If you go to drcindra.com and choose the podcast link, you'll find all of the information links on that show notes page. Again, without further ado, let's bring on Christy.

Welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. This is your host, Sindra Kampoff, and I am so grateful that you're here ready to listen to a story about resilience and overcoming adversity. I know that you're going to be empowered today by listening to Christy Shook. Christy Shook is the founder and co-owner of Whizzy Wig Juice. Christy, what I want us to do first is, first I'd like to welcome you to the podcast. I'm so excited that you're here. And could you tell us a little bit about your passion and tell us what you do right now? Thank you.

Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm thrilled to be here to share my story. And I'm passionate about serving. I'm Whizzy Wig Juice Company. We opened our doors four months ago and it's an organic juice restaurant, juice bar and restaurant, I should say, where we are able to provide

some very yummy, delicious, nutritious things for our customers to eat and our community to choose some healthy items, which I'm passionate about. And we'll talk probably a lot for the next time together on where that passion came from, but primarily through my experience in the last four years of living with cancer very intimately in a diagnosis that was delivered to my husband and I in January of 2012 when he was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer and was given two to four months to live, maybe six months, they said optimistically, but didn't want to give us false hope.

To that we took, I have to admit, we took quite major delight in the conversation of false hope and the idea that both my husband and I believed that and this I think lies with my passion but both of us believe that there is no such thing as false hope we use those terms together, unfortunately, in our society. But hope is not scientific, we have found. Hope is something that I think contributes to resilience. I think it contributes to passion. I think we can choose to see it anywhere and everywhere. And the culture of my family and our household is one of nurturing hope in every nook and cranny that exists. Christy, you gave us so many things to follow up on. So what I'd like us to do is I'd like you to tell the story

of why you started Whizzy Week Juice Company. You briefly mentioned to the listeners that Wes was diagnosed with cancer in January 2012, stage four colon cancer. So tell us about the journey that you've had opening up this juice company and how Wes is an inspiration and your journey has been leading you to opening up this company. Yes, absolutely. When Wes was diagnosed, we had the opportunity at that moment and many moments from that to understand and get to know this disease and how it was going to affect his body and our life and our future. Both of us, and I know that we had a very active conversation about how while there's cancer in his body, and thank goodness there are

professionals and specialists and medicine to deal with that, the cancer, and we weren't those people. What we were were people who also realized within his body there was health and there was love and there exists opportunity. So while we had doctors doing their work and we said yes to everything that they threw at us, we took it upon ourselves to honor and to see within Wes the health that existed amongst the disease that was there. And so we just completely threw open the books to everything that involved nutrition and what we could get our hands on and how we could affect his health for maybe nothing better than how could we help him feel good through chemotherapy treatments? How could we help him recover from surgery? And so we got into juicing. We just looked right into

as much nutrition as we could to support his health and the healthy part of who Wes Shook was. And we became empowered that way. I particularly as a caregiver was completely empowered to positively affect my husband's life whether it was from a chemo or whether it was just within our family dining experience no matter what it meant I wanted to do whatever I could what we found is he felt better when he juiced. He felt better when he ate clean. So we started making eating clean a priority and choosing organic food, fruits, vegetables, meats. We started limiting some of the things that we felt no longer served his body. And it was my oldest child who was 10 at the time. And she said, well, if dad's eating this way because he has cancer, shouldn't we eat this way because we don't want

cancer? And so began, I know. So began the journey for my entire family to change and adapt to a lifestyle that included healthy eating and really at its very pure sense of eating much more fruits and vegetables, eating much less sugar and processed foods and eating out less frequently. And I would see Wes come from eight hours in a chemo chair filled with what his body, what the cancer needed to attack it. We would come home and I'd make him a green organic juice and he would walk out heading for work. And literally I have the beautiful memory of him turning around and saying, I've not felt this great in 10 years. Wow. After eight hours of chemotherapy. Right, right. And having juice and feeling loved and supported and nurtured. So that we just kept

getting deeper and deeper into what nutrition meant and the role that it played on a healthy body, on a diseased body. And Wes lived for six months, and then he lived for a year. And doctors would continue to repeat what a miracle it was. And whatever we were doing, they just absolutely encouraged us to continue because they hadn't seen survivorship in in at the state of which disease was in his body it was just not expected and so he lived for two years and then he lived for three and it was 366 days ago that he passed away. So tomorrow we celebrate that we have survived a year without him now. In the state that we were in as a family, we knew and we loved the opportunity to talk about how we were surviving. And not only that, but thriving. And that's where our language turned to. I felt better as a 38, 40-year-old woman who

assumed good health and was active. And I noticed within my own body just positive physical changes. It felt better, had more energy, could run faster, could run farther, could do more, and could be silent. I was better at resting as much as I was better at doing. And same with my kids, knowing that they were growing up healthy. So as a caregiver, it was common sense. I would stop at nothing for Wes to help him feel better. And as a parent, I would stop at nothing to help my kids have better opportunity to feel good and be where they need to be as children.

And so the opportunities kept coming to talk to other people about nutrition and to share juice recipes and to encourage others along the way. It felt like service. It was lovely. So I would bring my juicer, and I would bring produce, and I would show up where anybody wanted me to and talk about juicing. And my husband, Wes, owned his own business, and he would travel quite a bit for that. And so as he traveled, we would find juice bars in Brooklyn, New York

or wherever it was that he went and found that the owners of those juice bars, some juice bars, had also gotten into juicing through a health crisis. And so this support just immediately was there and the encouragement was there. And Wes being an entrepreneur already, it lent itself to, wow, what do you think, do you think we could do a juice bar ourselves? And do you think this is the right community for that? Do you think this is the right time? So all of those questions aside, we pondered for over a year and we started putting the business plan together, found the perfect location.

And, um, and, and I just, honestly, I remember a year ago, um, actually it was like March in 2015. And I remember I felt like a bobblehead in that I was like, I was saying yes to things. I, if I had stopped and if I had really thought, wait a minute, wait a minute, my husband is in stage four cancer and this is, you know, we've got a lot going on. Are we sure? And I was so passion driven at that point that this is where the bobblehead came in is I was showing up to things saying yes and going, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, nobody's stopping me yet. So

yes is working. Yes continued to work as the answer that got me further and further onto this dream and into this passion. And then I found this beautiful friend and co-partner who Marie Farley Christensen, she and I were Livestrong instructors through the YMCA. So we were working with cancer survivors and helping them achieve healthier states of living. And through our work together and through our shared stories, we knew that we were meant to be, that this was meant for the two of us um and um and actually through a text message strangely enough um as we she was helping me with my business plan and I texted her just it would just be so much it would just be so great if we were doing this

together and um and our text evolved into a partnership that we got to open our doors. And now we're enjoying co-owning this business of providing juice to a much bigger audience. And it's so rewarding. It's the hardest place to leave. I just love being there and doing the work. Awesome. You know, Christy, there's so many things that I heard about your story. And I bring it back to mindset, which is what we've been talking about on this podcast. work. Awesome. You know, Christy, there's so many things that I heard about your story and I, I,

I bring it back to mindset, which is what we've been talking about on this podcast. And there's a few things that I wrote down that I heard you say that you focused on health instead of sickness. And to me, you know, that's like, it's like focusing on optimism instead of pessimism or opportunities instead of difficulties, or you also said thriving instead of just surviving. And you know how this mindset helped Wes live longer, three years longer than what they suggested, and how, you know, you had this love and support around him, this like nurturing atmosphere. So I'm thinking about how those two sort of like psychology pieces and mindset pieces added to the juicing. Absolutely. So, you know, earlier on the podcast, maybe about

two or three weeks ago, I talked about how difficulties happen for us and not to us. And I think this is an incredible example of how you've turned something into this incredible opportunity to serve others and positively impact others. Thank you. It's, I mean, it's, it's incredible. And to me, that's, it's all about resilience. So how, what does that word mean to you? And how do you, how do you live by this mindset? Yeah, that's a great question. And, and I appreciate it. I can tell you that I had a great opportunity in my life to be raised by a man who literally, I knew that every breath that he took contained love for me. I knew it in my dad and, and my mom, I, both of them were wonderful. So I'm blessed to have been loved by, by my parents and to be raised that way.

We had struggle in our life, and we didn't shy away from it. But I'll tell you that I learned very on from my dad, and I remember him intentionally sitting down with me and having a conversation with me in which he talked about that life will unfold as it does and there is only so much that we can do about it but we always he was convinced and he hasn't lived to find otherwise he said but he was convinced that we always had a choice and for every moment there existed a choice.

And not that the choices were always going to be easy. And not that the choices were always going to be what you wanted. And so therein lies some conversation around integrity. And I particularly have learned that in this last year. Losing less and carrying on through that loss, there are countless times that I have been faced with, I don't want to do this. And I'm sure your listeners can relate to that. I think there are, whether it's grief or whether it's heartache or whether it's, everybody's journey has moments where I believe you have, you are met with that,

this isn't really what I had hoped for, or this isn't really what I want to do. Sometimes it's easy things like, oh, I wish I didn't have to get up and go get eggs for my kids because that's what they want. And we don't have any. And sometimes it's big, major, major stuff. So I always bring it back to this conversation that I had with my dad that seemed pretty simple at the time, but has definitely, I believe, been a major part in my mindset of knowing, wait a minute, I have a choice right now. Yeah. I have a choice. And in some of the darkest moments of our lives where sometimes the choice may have been for me, right now I have to, I just have to sit here for this moment because I do not have anything else except for to sit here and breathe and that moment passes by and then you have

another choice to make and are you going to choose to get up after that moment of sitting and breathing or are you going to you know so so I I honestly think you can bring it back to a very simple plot line of what your choice is to mountain, earth-shaking, mountain-moving choices too. But that to me is where resiliency lies, is in knowing, I think, that we have a choice and in remembering that we have a choice. Because I don't think i don't think things do happen to you i do think they happen for you i would agree with you on that and um and and to follow that um with the with the memory or the knowledge or the awareness of and that means we are we have a choice um we may not like the choices but if we continue to to actively intentionally choose and you know and it goes into

what you're passionate about and it goes into what motivates you and knowing yourself and and those high performance qualities you talk about because of course we want to make good choices for ourselves you know but we don't always so I think that that has helped me I know that that helped us with Wes's cancer diagnosis I know that we did not sit there and and feel helpless I know that we chose to feel empowered and every doctor appointment that we had positive news or negative news, you know, Wes would look forward to the doctor appointments and he would, I would, you know, if I felt myself getting nervous around him, he would always look

at me and say, hey, it's just information. And from that information, then we can choose what to do with it. You know, it's not good or bad. bad it's information how we react to it is where the good and the bad lies and we can choose that and so we just actively constantly engaged in okay how do we what choice do we have now we have this choice and this choice and this choice and um and you sometimes have to get creative about what your choices are um but um but i think that's what you successfully continue to just drive yourself through those things those moments yeah christy what i heard you talking about is you know that you you have a choice remember you have a choice and there's three ways that i heard you talk about how you have a choice in your actions you can choose what to do

if you're going to sit there or go get the eggs yeah but you have a choice in your actions. You can choose what to do if you're going to sit there or go get the eggs. But you have a choice in how you feel, right? You choose to feel empowered or not. And then you have a choice in what you think about if you really see the doctor's appointment as just information or if you are thinking about how terrible it's going to be, right? So we have a choice in our actions, our emotions, and our thoughts. And one other word that you said within there is you said resilience. So what does that mean to you? Because I think your story is absolutely one of resilience

and taking something that can be seen as difficult as this incredible opportunity to make an amazing difference in the world. Well, thank you. I really appreciate that. One of the things that I lived into without really realizing was one of the cultures that exists in my household. And I think it talks a little bit about that. So let's see. Kids always come up to you as a parent and say, Mom, I have a problem. And we created that environment to be open and to listen to our kids and be approachable. But what I found myself always responding to them was, wait a minute, I'm not exactly sure if this is a problem. Let's just maybe see if this maybe there's an opportunity in there.

And it was a little bit later on that I was talking to my LipStrom class about this. And because I think, again, it's one of those things we can all relate to. There's a lot of, you know, you wake up late and you've got, you know, everything that's like Murphy's Law. Everything that happens, you know, will happen or can happen. And sometimes you just trickle that way. Well, I tend to, so I think we all have things we can relate to that we can see as problems. I had a great opportunity to have, for the last 22 years, an amazing partner in my life. And I am quite certain that because of Wes and the way that our relationship carried on with each other,

we just tended not to see things as problems. We just always talked through them to discover, wait a minute, actually, there's an opportunity here. And so it's hard when you have that mindset, when you have that view, and when you share it with my life partner, we just, we never felt like, and I don't egotistically feel like we felt like we couldn't fail. I just feel like we felt like there was nothing to fail at because there's always something to learn and there's always something to rediscover about, well, wait a minute, there's this opportunity to do it this way.

And so I was talking to my Livestrong class about this and the problem one of my participants had with the way she was feeling, and she brought it up like it was a problem, and her fatigue. And then we thought, well, you know, it could be just an opportunity to learn how to rest, and it could be an opportunity to learn how to ask for help, and it could be an opportunity to find a different way to use your energy and um and see what works and so again it of course goes back on that foundation of choice but um so I was telling my lip strong class that the way that I talk to my children. And realized that in telling this story,

I had my daughter came up to me, and like many times before, Mom, I have a problem. And what she did is she came up to me and she said, Mom, I think we have an opportunity. Awesome. It was. And that her language changed as a result of the language we

used and as a and as a result of the mindset we had and um and and i find that to be a much more fluid way to move through life where problems tend to kind of stop us in our tracks and they kind of say wait a minute you know i I had a huge problem a year ago. My husband died. And we were planning on opening a juice bar. And you could have easily just given in and said, you know what? This isn't my time. I can't do this without his support.

Right. I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to do this. Yeah. The problems, if you put them down on a piece of paper would have way outweighed. Um, but everything is transformed with the notion that, wait a minute, there's an opportunity. Now we have an opportunity to, um, my partnership will look different than I, than I thought it would, you know,

six months ago when I was planning this, but what an opportunity that is, you know, because my partner Marie has way different strengths than I do. And our partnership is so complimentary and without her, this would look so different. And, um, and, and, uh, and, and if I look back into my gosh we would never have this passion to do what we're doing had it not been for wes's body being the vehicle that had the cancer that brought it into our lives you know um there we go opportunities happen for you, not to you. Or difficulties happen for you, not to you. Exactly, yes. And lastly on that, one of the things that Wes said the day before he died is when he informed us that it was time for him to go.

And it literally was shocking. We were not expecting it, and it's a beautiful memory for me because living with stage 4 colon cancer for three and a half years and then being surprised when death comes was actually, there's beauty in that for me because we didn't live death much at all. But when he had informed us that it was time for him to go, what followed out of his mouth was, this is so much bigger than us. And yeah, and it was just a huge gift because I think that probably every day since he's left us, I think that probably every day I've thought that or said that

or communicated that in some way to a customer or to my team or to my children or just to myself in my quiet moments of just knowing this is so much bigger than us. And there's something, and that's humbling, humbling you know and it's purposeful um it's it's definitely purpose driven for me and knowing um we used to just do this in our kitchen and the five of us benefited and maybe a friend or two or you know a handful along the way um and now you know 150 customers come in um and you know we have plans to take this um as far as as far beyond our plans you know um because because it is so much bigger than us and the opportunity to shed some light

um is motivating for sure you know christy when i was uh telling people i was going to interview you today they said you know what i really want to know? Is she really like this? You know, I mean, how can she like really live like this? And so that gets to the strategies to me. And you've already said a few strategies. You've said how you're always looking to see, you know, what's the opportunity instead of the problem. You are realizing you have a choice in how you respond, how you act, and how you think. And then you're looking at failure as not failure like we would typically think of it, you know, as terrible, but you're really looking at it as an opportunity to learn. Are there any other strategies? I mean, I did hear you say about being purposeful and just knowing it's bigger than you. Is there anything else that

you could tell the listeners about how you develop this mindset or specific strategies you use to really, and I hear you like living this way. This isn't just something that you portray right this isn't something that you um have just turned on it's something that it's a daily decision yeah to to live in a resilient way with this really optimistic mindset absolutely and i think that one of the things that comes to mind and i've heard myself say it is um the practice of it um It's not something you just put on. It's something that you become, and you become that way, just like you would train for a marathon. You don't just wake up and go, I'm going to run a marathon today.

I mean, no. Right? If you do, you're going to crash and burn in the race and we both know that you train for it and you practice and you remind yourself through the ups and the downs and the trials and the tribulations and the joys of the great runs and the um and the um the strategies of the bad runs and the um you know you revisit things and um and i feel like i can attest to the practice of living optimistically or living with resilience isn't something that happens because you wanted to but it's something that happens because like i just said um through the joys obviously being optimistic is easier when it's a joyful moment.

But through the sorrows, how can you approach this moment optimistically in sorrow and in grief and in devastation? And can you love the moments that are easy to love as much as the moments that are hard to love? And a part of me has to admit that I might reflect on myself in moments of, like, I might actually look for opportunities to love when it's hard to. You know, there might be a part of me that understands turmoil, you know, or is okay being uncomfortable. Yeah, I know.

That, like, you know, not that you choose to be uncomfortable, but you know, I believe, I think it's my faith that believes that through this discomfort, something will be learned from it. And this goes back to my first job out of college. I went into exercise physiology, and I went into corporate wellness. But my internship was in corporate wellness, so I got a part-time job as a salesperson at a clothing store and I was out in Seattle and I did not get along with my boss at all and it it it's hard for me to not get along with people but I really enjoy trying to I really enjoy getting along with people and this but this boss of mine I just didn't like the way she did things and I struggled with the along with people, and this, but this boss of mine, I just didn't like the way she did things, and I struggled with the way she led us, and you know, and I remember I was,

my parents, my, everything I knew was back here in Minnetonka, and Minnesota, and I'm out in Seattle, because that's where I wanted to be, and I had this boss, and I would talk to my, I would talk to my parents, and I remember my dad saying sometimes you learn more from the people you don't like and the things you don't like than you will ever learn from the things you do and who knew that that would be such a profound moment right but I have carried with that with me for the last 23 years you know of knowing um and so so it does mean to me that life will unfold and people will come into your life and you may not always like them or get along with them but you you still have I still have a respect for that I still I can still appreciate

that they're in my life I can still find can still find something to appreciate about this experience because I know I will be better for it. I just, I believe that. So Christy, I hear you talking about like how this is a practice for you. It's a practice that you've developed of optimism and resilience. And it's a choice that you make to decide if you're going to practice this or not. And you have to train. It's just like a marathon. you make to decide if you're going to practice this or not. And you have to train. It's just like a marathon.

You have to train. So, you know, here at the High Performance Mindset, we really believe in keeping your why front and center and how that keeps you fueled and passionate and excited for what you're doing. And you've told us your story of your why. If you could articulate, you know, in a couple of sentences why why do you do this um what what echoes most loudly is a belief that i have that we are better together and I think that's my why I I have lived um with wonderful relationships and I've lived with you know relationships that didn't seem to serve too much either but I through the good and the bad of them I believe I'm better for it um I know a few years ago we did a Tough Mudder and I'm sure you're familiar with

that and most of your listeners are too now and it's just a great obstacle course event. Why I chose the Tough Mudder, it was fun because you know you'd heard of the Warrior Dash and you'd heard of Muddy Buddies and so we were looking at all these obstacle courses to do and this is back when I thought I couldn't run a straight line and I needed you know activities along the way and so um you know I found one obstacle course event and I thought oh that's fun um but then I thought oh but and then it opened up to here's another obstacle course event and um and I was using Wes as my exam as my reason for like finding something more thrilling and more and more because wes was just fierce in his um ability to take on anything and what was

really fun about this whole experience was when i found the tough mudder and i was looking online and i was like yes this like 10 mile, 26 obstacles, electrical shock, blah, blah, blah. Electrical shock? He's going to love this. And I had to be honest and say, wait a minute. This is actually about me. Like, I am thrilled. Look at the process that I've had in discovering one and then choosing a different one

and getting to the Tough Mudder of all things and what I loved about it was that the the way they marketed it was more collaboratively where you saw that I imagined that there'd be obstacles that would be hard for a single person to do so we signed up and we did it and and that's exactly what this event ended up becoming was an event that literally there were obstacles that that I would not have been able to get through on my very own by my own self. I have a picture of climbing this wall. And Wes took the picture of me from below, and I'm climbing. And from the very top, over the top of the wall is a hand.

And it's reaching out to help lift me up over the wall. And Wes and I went by ourselves. We didn't know anybody else um but the the entire um experience was one of such collaborative nature in this physical and um you know in this environment that seemed competitive and and it just furthered my belief into this we're better together whether it's fun things whether it's hard things, whether it's like life is just going to unfold, um, the good, the bad, the ugly and the beautiful. And, um, and my why I think sits somewhere in the, the awareness of, I, I would much rather go through this with you. Um, and I would much rather have you go through this with me, you know, and, um, and

some days that doesn't always mean that it doesn't really mean I'm as extroverted as it may sound like I am because I need time by myself, but, but foundationally, um, I, I know that we're here to have a human experience. And to me, that means, that means some of it's going to be uncomfortable, but we can find the comfort in that, you know? And I just hold strong to that. Awesome. Better Together. I think about a marathon that my husband and I ran together,

and it was his first one. And so we got a big, you know, those race posters. And then we had the author sign it and she said better together really it was super cool yeah so I can see how that is a very very strong why so Christy let's go to the top 10 traits of high performers yes um you've already talked about several of those maybe unintentionally um that are on this list. But tell us which one of these you see that you exhibit the most right now in your life. Well, I know one that resonates really strongly with me is number 10. Dominate is a little bit more of a scary word to me.

It's a big word and I love it. And I don't necessarily view myself as dominating. However, I know that in the last four years of my journey through cancer, where I would always say, and I will always say this, that love exists in the moment. Fear does not. Like, fear exists when you're outside the moment, because fear is, oh, no, I'm afraid about this, and it's pending. Or what if this happens, and it hasn't yet, you know?

And there's a very fine line for me as I walk a journey filled with love and focused on love. And I have lived through understanding and knowing that being focused in the present moment, whether it's an athletic event or a business decision, or being at home and creating our home. I am most authentic, and I am most who I am, and I am most human when I dominate the moment. And that is where I know and live that love exists you know and um and i'm telling you you can be filled with rage and speeding down the highway because you're late for something and somebody gets in your path if you're present in that moment you will not deny that love isn't there, you know. Yeah, so for those of the listeners who do not have the list, the 10th trait is they dominate the moment. And I like what you're saying, Christy, about how you can experience love in the moment.

You know, it's a really mindful approach. Whereas if you're feeling fear or anxiety, you're not in the moment you know it's a really mindful approach whereas if you're feeling fear or anxiety you're not in the moment um i talk about how you can replace uh love with fear you know so whenever you're feeling the fear you replace it with love because you can't feel both you can't feel both at the same time yeah so i like what you're saying how that's contributing to the now yeah uh which of these traits do you see yourself still working on? And the reason I ask you that is just because, you know, like we're all a work in progress and it's super hard to like, I mean, you know, to have all of these traits right now at this moment. So which one of these do you still see yourself like just, you know, continuing to work on? Yeah. Well, I think that

number five, they control the controllables. High performers focus on what they have control over, their attitude, preparation, effort, and they dominate their reaction to things like their boss, their coworkers, teammates. And I think about that because I think that's where the practice is. Controllables are always going to change you know and and what I mean by that is I feel like no matter how rigid your structure of life is or your training plan you know you know it's gonna be things you can't control exactly you wake up for your 20-mile run and and it's storming and you have to there's always going to be things you can't control. Exactly.

You wake up for your 20-mile run and it's storming and you have to get your 20 miles in and you have to figure out what, you know. So you have to find out what you can control and what you can't control. And that's a choice thing again. You know, we tend to, I think, try to control too much. I think we really do as a society try to imagine that we have more control than we do and you definitely learn that through cancer and through grief and so you know I'm finding myself right now wanting to control much less and I so I think

my awareness about what I can control what I can't control, and then the practice of that, and just keeping sharp on what my attitude is and staying true to my purpose. And I think that will be just an ongoing work in progress. So if you'd like to get this top 10 traits of high performers, the way you can do that is go to my website and you can fill in your email and your first name. I shortened my website to drcindra.com, so it'd be super easy because my last name is really hard. You can go to drcindra.com to get that good list of really what the best do differently. So Christy, let's go to a quick speed round. So is, you know, is there a book or, yeah, exactly. I should have some music with that. Is there a book or resource, you know, that you use that you'd recommend? Oh my gosh. You know what? I think that it's not

too unfamiliar for most of us, but Don Miguel Ruiz, right, I think is the author of The Four Agreements. Oh, nice. Yeah, that's an incredible book. Isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. And having read it and revisiting it and using it as a reminder, that's one of the go-tos that I find just very simply states some main thoughts on just doing our best. Christy, what is a word that people describe you as? I would for sure say optimistic. I know people think that. I appreciate that.

I hope that people, I hope that one of the words would be love. I think it's been a battleground for me in that we knew, and I remember it was in 2006 when I honestly, my dad died that year, and right before he died, I just remember communicating to him. And here's the thing, I saw this journey of him being this force. He was dominating. He was a force. And his intelligence led him and defined him.

And to see that, he had brain cancer. To see him lose his intelligence and just be love, it was at this time where I just felt like this is who I am and this is why I'm here. And then I saw my dad you know of all the things that we try to accumulate in our life and all the the reasons we try to be who we are when it's all said and done and as my dad died I just saw him be loved and and so I know that's one of the legacies that I hope to continue just to live through

is defining that for the people in my life to see me as that. And there's a lot of sort of phrases or quotes that you've talked about throughout this interview, but is there a phrase that you think that you live by? Well, remember me for the better together, and I'm glad to hear you get that. I think a lot of us do. You know, I think we all know that we're better together. So I know that's not unique. It's powerful. It's powerful, isn't it? I remember my softball coach in high school had us wear these shirts that you know just said attitude is everything and I know I imagine you you live that and um and support that and preach that um but I just marvel at when you really find attitude is everything um and um and one of those other

ones about worry and fear you know and we worry about like 90% of the things that I mean we spend so much time worrying and only 10% of those things really you know evolve into anything and so I think that helps you work to minimize if you're you know if you find you're filled with worry and fear and and I know people who are and and I think that that tends to be one of those thought processes that helps you realize, like, 90% of the things you worry about won't happen, you know. And then when you think about the power of your attitude over that, you know, I hope that helps us find balance somehow. Christy, it's really hard for me to summarize today's interview because there are so many incredible things. And I want to give you some love back. I appreciate the time that you have provided us.

And there's thousands of listeners that you've impacted today by sharing your story. If I could pick out a few things that really stood out to me that you've talked about. You've talked about how this mindset of optimism and resilience is really a practice. It's like training for a marathon. It's a practice that you have every single day. And you realize that this is a choice, the choice on how you decide to act and think and feel. And you choose to feel empowered, even despite the difficulty, because you don't really see the difficulty. You see it as an opportunity and you see health instead of sickness. So tell us how we can find more about Whizzy Wing Juice. And if we want to order some of this amazing juice, I have

one right now that I'm drinking. It's called Balance. It's a simple blend of cucumber, lemon, pear, and ginger to bring peace to my soul and body. This is actually my favorite one, so I appreciate you brought this. Isn't that funny? I brought this. And I brought Recover. Mine is, and actually this one we designed for our athletes. Mine is a soothing blend of collard greens, kale, parsley, and beets. It's paired with lime, green apple, pear, and mint and provides rich nourishment to reclaim your mind and body. We have nine juices that we bottle fresh every day.

They last for five days right now. Our manufacturer gives them a little bit more time, but we want you to have the freshest, the most tasty juice. Our website, WYSIWYGJUICE.com, and that's W-Y-S-I-W-Y-G. WYSIWYG is an acronym. It stands for what you see is what you get. We really felt that was in line with our mission. We just wanted, you know, everybody to know here's a collard green and kale and beet and mint and, you know, this is all we put into this juice and we press it with nine tons of pressure and out comes this liquid awesome you know that supports your body

and so wizabitjuice.com is where you can go find out information about the juice and and our mission and who we are marie and i have i I mean, we could fill up another hour, but we have an amazing story of walking the identical journey. She lost her husband, like Wes, at the age of 40. Just 10 years apart they were. And their three kids were our three kids' age identically. And they got into juicing as a result. So our story's on there a little bit.

But you'll go to the website, and there's a way to contact us too. Right now, we're four months opening the door, and where we can go with the help of your listeners and the help of our community and our passion is, I believe, limitless. And I would love to hear from people. They can contact us on their facebook we have a facebook page too at wizzy with juice company that you can check out and be a little bit more engaged with too so um find us there and let us know what nutrition means to

you or how we can help you make better choices for yourself or somebody important to you. And we'll do this together. I'm confident of that. That's awesome. So Whizzy Wig Juice, check it out. So that's W-Y-S-I-W-Y-G.com. I will link that up on the show notes as well. Perfect. And, you know, I would encourage you to reach out to them.

Check it out. Check their website. Learn more about their story. show notes as well. And, you know, I would encourage you to reach out to them, check it out, check their website, learn more about their story, learn more about juicing and the impact of juicing. And if you want to order some, give them a call. Yep. We will find a way to bridge that gap where, you know, wherever you are, we'll find a juice bar that's near you and bridge the gap closer if you're across the seas and over the oceans and all that but you did a great job summarizing that's like you and I have to hang out more well Christy thank you so much for your time and your energy and again can't wait to hear what the listeners have to you listed out to the listeners about this episode so you can reach out to me if you'd like. My email is cindra at cindracampoff.com.

I will forward those on to Christy and I'm always at mentally underscore strong. If you'd like to tweet about this, we'd love to help us get this message out there to other people or other listeners. So as always, you can find the show notes at cindracampoff.com slash podcast or drcindra.com. That's another way, a shortened way. And again, have an outstanding day, everyone. And make sure today you're mentally strong. So be mentally strong. Thank you for listening to High Performance Mindset.

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