Sense of Soul - Tiny Leaps Big Changes

Episode Date: August 14, 2020

We welcomed Gregg Clunis author and podcast host of Tiny Leaps Big Changes! Gregg shares with us his personal story of how it became his passion to help others by offering practical self development! Sharing with the world his own personal journey and the importance in recognizing that,  “All big changes comes from the tiny leaps you take every day.”!!  Please check out Gregg’s amazing podcast Tiny Leaps Big Changes! Check out his blog, books, videos and learn more about his journey, courses and more at his website. www.greggclunis.com To learn more about his “Consistency Course” go to   www.consistencycourse.com ALSO CHECK THIS OUT!!   “Breaking Through the Glass Ceiling” is a FREE ONLINE VIDEO SERIES EVENT!  www.breakingthroughtheglassceilingsummit.com/sense-of-soul Or go to our website www.mysenseofsoul.com for more info! Please RATE, COMMENT AND SUBSCRIBE!! Thanks!  

Welcome to the Sense of Soul podcast. We are your hosts, Shanna and Mandy. Grab your coffee, open your mind, heart, and soul. It's time to awaken. So excited to have our next guest on today. He's a positive, vibing, goal-setting, be your best self-making, great advice-giving author and podcaster. We think he's a big fucking deal. We're so excited to have with us Greg Clunas. He believes that all big changes come from tiny leaps that you take every day. Thanks for being with us, Greg. Thank you so much for having me. It's an absolute honor to be here. The best string of words I've ever been introduced as so thank you. You have the most amazing podcast radio voice ever. Thank you so much. Yeah. How'd you come up with that title for your podcast?

December 21st, 2015, I had the idea for the show and it all sort of came from I'd been following personal development and actively sort of practicing and trying to direct my life for that point years. Like I started when I was 13. Up to that point, I'd always found it really helpful. But I remember reading this book back in December 2015 that just sort of put me over the edge. And I just remember feeling really angry because this book was supposedly trying to help people, but wasn't acknowledging a lot of the differences between the author and the people that the author was interviewing and the average person who picks it up and reads it. And so I had this massive fear of somebody finding that book

on Amazon, picking it up, giving it a read, and just following the steps to a T and ending up in a worse spot because they didn't understand the privileges. They didn't understand the history. They didn't understand the amount of work that led to the moments that he shared. So he didn't really drive into what allowed these people to create the lives they were living. He just talked about the lives they were living. I remember feeling like somebody needs to put something out that counters this. And at the time I'd been podcasting, I'd been working with clients in the podcast space. So that was the medium that was accessible to me. So that night wrote down in my journal, and I still have that entry.

It's one of the most prized things that I have. I've never been great at sticking with journaling for long periods of time, but I have this entry and I'm so happy about that. And I quote, I want to start a podcast that talks about the reality of personal development. And that's sort of where the original concept came from. From there, the only other thing I knew was I needed it to launch on January 1st, 2016, because New Year's resolution and thinking about it from a marketing point of view, that was when most people were going to be paying attention. So I had the idea for the show. I knew when I wanted it to launch,

it was about eight or nine days away. And from that point on, I just hustled really. I sat down, I planned everything out, wrote down different episode concepts, recorded, re-recorded. I think I did the first three episodes like six times each to try and figure out my cadence, figure out how to edit it properly, figure out what the show was going to be and how it was going to be delivered. And somewhere in there, I have this journal entry of just me jotting down random name ideas. There's a list of 10 names. The only other one I remember on it is everyday science, because I had this concept of diving into research documents, looking at different behavioral science practices and

applying that to people's everyday lives. So that was sort of a name I was toying with for a little bit. The other name on that I remember was Tiny Leaps, but it was not Tiny Leaps Big Changes. It was just Tiny Leaps at that point. Now, I happened to be working with a client who was a copywriter. I remember bringing it up to her after one of our sessions one day. And she said, you know, that sounds really good, but it's missing something. Like it doesn't sound complete. So I went back to the drawing board, wrote down a bunch of other things, eventually landed on Tiny Leaps Big Changes.

It was copywriter approved. And that became the name going forward. And the whole thing that I say at the end, all big changes come from the tiny leaps you take every day. Honestly, I did not plan that. I was recording the first episode for the final time, like I knew this was the version going out. And at the end, it just sort of came, like it just happened. And that became the thing I right after I said it, I knew this needs to be in every episode. And so going forward, all 500 something episodes, like I mentioned that on every single episode at the end, because I want people to remember that regardless of what this episode was about, regardless of what you learned or didn't learn, regardless of if it was boring or entertaining, it doesn't matter. Ultimately, what you do today is what will create the life you live tomorrow. That's what I want people to walk away with at the end.

And so I tell them that at the end, every single time. That's awesome. I totally get it. That kind of happened to Mandy and I as well. You know, we didn't create our podcast, but for any other reason, we felt that we couldn't find the information that we were looking for years ago when we were going through our spiritual awakening. Now there's so many amazing podcasts out there. You can just tell that the world is really awakening. And I know that you also like to meditate and have certain practices that help you build that inner strength, that soul. Yeah. So meditation, journaling, all of these sort of like self-reflection and space tools, tools that allow you to take space away from the world, away from the things that are bothering you

and just give yourself a room to breathe. Like they've always been incredibly valuable in my life now I will say that I have never been the person who meditates daily for the last five years and has always done that like that's not how I tend to operate I tend to treat it a lot like therapy in that I include it in my life when I feel I need it I'm not hard on myself if I choose not to I'm not hard on myself if I choose not to. I'm not hard on myself if I go a stretch of a week or even a month without doing it because I didn't need it in those moments. So meditation for me is helpful in a number of ways, whether it's helping me fall asleep at night. I tend to have a little bit of insomnia. I lay awake, just brain sort of going constantly. And I also tend to work pretty much up until I'm going to bed. So that doesn't help for shutting down and getting things

in a place of calm. So meditation allows me to do that. A cup of tea next to me allows me to do that. Journaling allows me to do that. And I also use it in the mornings to get myself focused and help myself sort of recover from if I had a particularly hectic day the day before, if that particular day is going to be very hectic, I use it as a way to center myself and allow myself to approach what I need to do from a place of consciousness. And when I say consciousness, I essentially mean mindfulness. But in my opinion, it means being aware and proactive about your life rather than reactive. Making choices each day and consciously approaching those choices is

ultimately what, at least for me, determines did I have a good day or not? Being present. Being present and actively choosing what you want to happen. I love how you don't beat yourself up about not doing it every day. You are all about what Mandy says all the time, progress, not perfection. I love that mindset. This is always such an interesting conversation to have, whether it's with other people actively putting out content and leading in this space like you two are, or it's with my listeners or even just friends and family. I tend to have a very different view about failure and success than a lot of people that I know, in the sense that I don't believe failure actually exists at all. I don't believe in the dynamic of success and failure. Like that doesn't make sense to me. What makes sense is did I show

up or not? Did I make progress or not? And that or not isn't failure. That or not is not yet. And I just really look at things. Let's say I have a goal around, which right now for me, running is a major part of my life that I recently sort of added to it. I can go out for a run and not hit my target, right? Let's say I wanted two miles, but I just didn't feel great that day. I only made it one mile or whatever it is. I could go back and beat myself up and say, oh, well, I failed at that target. And maybe I'm not even actively beating myself up. Maybe I'm picking myself up and I'm doing all of the motivational things to make it okay, right?

I'm still burning energy for no reason. Like anytime you spend having to pick yourself up because you failed at this thing and it didn't work and now you have to re-motivate yourself the next time, you're still wasting energy when you really don't need to. Because in actuality, you still made it out for a run that day. You still ate one healthy meal that day. You still journaled that day. You still did something for yourself that allowed you to move forward. The problem is that we look at moving forward and we don't count it unless it's these massive giant steps. Like unless we've hit some new milestone or we hit this target, we don't count that as

progress. We don't count that as actually getting anything. But it still has to matter that day you just ran down the block versus running three miles. Like that still counts for something. That still matters. When you look at the value that comes from getting outside, from stretching your legs, from actually going for that run and practicing your form,

practicing your breathing, even if it was short, you're still getting something from it. So why wouldn't we count that? So when I really look at our goals and the things that we want, I just don't see it as, oh, I was successful in this or I was failing at this. I look at it as, did I make progress or not? If I did make progress, then I win. I'm awesome. Great. I'll try again tomorrow. If I didn't make progress, that's still fine. Today is a tough day. I have to deal with a lot of things. I have seven kids at home, like whatever your constraints are, right? Just I

don't use the word failure with myself or with anyone that I speak to. I just look at it as, are you in progress or not? Did you make progress or not? Yeah. Just as long as that foot's going forward, you're still learning. I mean, even if you haven't got there, even with all of the setbacks or delays in your life, I mean, those are all just part of the learning experience as well. I mean, let's look at a super concrete example for a lot of people. Let's say that you are applying for jobs, like you want to switch careers, you want to switch jobs, find a better company, get paid more. If you go out and you give your resume out to a bunch of different companies,

you do a few interviews, and you don't get any of them. Should that count as a failure? Because unless you've now decided, oh, you know what, I did three interviews, and nobody wanted me. So I'm just not going to do this anymore. Unless you've decided I'm done looking for jobs, you're just in progress. You just haven't gotten the job yet. You make that decision that this didn't work. So I'm done forever. For the rest of my life, I will never do this thing again. That's when you can say, okay, I failed at that. But most people don't do that with things. So why are we using that term? So if they're just if they just give up, and they're not doing it, is that failure?

And it's not even just giving up because look, you have to look at the entirety of the rest of your life. If you're going to live for another 50 years. And like, are you truly using the job example? Are you truly never going to apply for another job ever again, just because it didn't work this one time? Like, if that's honestly the case, then yeah, maybe you failed, or maybe you just decided you didn't want this anymore. But as long as at some point, whether it's three months from now, or seven years from now, you're going to be trying that thing again because it still matters to you. You're just in progress.

And that progress can take a very long time. I look at it as, oh, thank God for these roadblocks because I know something better is coming. My vibration is not aligned with that job. So I'm not going to be with that company for a reason. And I'm thankful for that. And then I just move on to the next because I think that your vibration will attract what you're looking for. So if you're at a low vibration, that might not be why you're getting a job.

Recently, I went to go pull out all of my certificates. And I mean, I have every certificate and education you could possibly think of. And I've used very few of them. I mean I have every certificate and education you could possibly think of and I've used very few of them. I mean I sent Shanna a picture because in that moment I was feeling like a failure. I sat with it this morning and thought you know what no I made progress at that time in my life the wisdom and the knowledge I got from those classes that was progress for me in that time. And now here we are 10 years later, and I've decided to pick it back up. So it fits perfectly with what you just said, that sometimes there's time, you know, a lot of time, but not a failure for me because at that exact moment, that's where I needed to be and what I needed to be learning. So yeah, you gave me that perspective.

Thank you. Yeah. And so to address Shanna for a second, I personally, like, I think we're approaching this exact same way. I don't use the term like vibration or, or any of that stuff. My approach to personal development has always been the logical side of it. Like the step-by-step, what do I need to do next? Like data-driven approach to it. But with that said, it's exactly the same thing that I approach it with in the sense that, and this is exactly what you were just talking about. I did a certified personal development

like six or seven years ago. And I just straight up never took the final test because at some point during it, I decided, you know what? This isn't right for me. This isn't the thing I actually want to be doing. I thought it was. And I made progress. I signed up.

I went through the course. I learned everything I needed to learn from it. I just never did the actual certification. Now, someone can look at that and say, oh, well, you failed at being a personal trainer, but I didn't want to be a personal trainer. So is that actually a failure? Like that isn't what I decided I wanted to do in my life. So how, if anything, I succeeded at avoiding a bad outcome. People have these ideas about what failure is based on what? Like who the fuck made that up? Who made the mountain so high for everybody? That should be measured by something that they feel within them, not by all the conditions of the freaking world that says if you don't have a certificate or don't have this or

that, that you're a failure. Yeah. and listen, I can get very conspiratorial about where these ideas of success and failure come from. Yeah. Like we can spend a lot of time talking about how many other cultures around the world outside of the United States do not treat failure and success the way that we do. We can spend a lot of time talking about

how the cycle of failure and success in a lot of ways, I don't want to say it is designed for, but it does result in people spending more money and doing a lot more that maybe we wouldn't necessarily be chasing if that system wasn't there. What I can say is I think it's all, excuse my language, bullshit. What I can say is, I think it's all excuse my language bullshit. And I think that we spend so much time and energy beating ourselves up over both sides of it. We beat ourselves up about failing. And we often beat ourselves up about not succeeding enough. I know we actually are successful. We we won. But we look at it and we say, oh, well, we're not as good as this person or we're not as good as that person

or we're not quite where we had in our head. Or by the time we get there, we've moved the goalpost so far that like there's just never a moment where we stop and say, okay, I'm settled. I'm happy, I'm content. Now contentment doesn't mean lack of ambition because I will always be ambitious.

I'm always gonna get to a place and still want to go further. Like that is ingrained in who I am and how I was raised and the people that raised me. And quite frankly, the very fact of being an immigrant means being ambitious. You packed up your life and moved to another country. But if I don't stop at some point, and this is lesson that I learned from my father passing away, my biggest goal throughout my entire childhood, teenage years, early adult years was get as rich as possible and retire them so that they could experience the life that they traded in order to move me and my sister here. Because I knew that they sacrificed. I knew, like I saw it firsthand. There were many years that I did not see my father for weeks because of the schedule that he had to work during middle school. We were not the family that went out camping or fishing or played catcher. Like I didn't have a relationship with him because he chose to sacrifice that so that he could solidify us here as a family and give me long-term opportunity.

Like that kind of sacrifice is something I could never pay back. But I thought at the very least, you know what? I'm going to prove that this was worth it. I'm going to be as rich and successful as possible. And I'm going to retire them. And then guess what happened? He just up and died. Like there was nothing I could do about it. No amount of money in the world would have fixed it. Like

nothing would have changed the outcome. And it really made me realize, oh yes, I can aspire to these things. And I still aspire to retire my mother, pay for her to go travel and enjoy life. But if I don't stop to be content in where I am right now, I am going to miss out on everything that I've accomplished so far. Everything that I'm learning right now that is exciting. Everything that I could be doing time with my own family. I'm going to make the exact same mistakes he did in addition to just never possibly accomplishing the goal because sometimes life gets in the way and it says hey you know what you can work as hard as you want but I'm just gonna kill this person so you don't ever get to do that like that happens that is a real reality of life so I'm ranting a little bit here but no no you know what I started got everything on my list I feel like throwing it

away because I'd rather just talk to you real like this. My dad, same thing. He worked himself to death. That's what he did. That was his life. Literally. Congratulations. The one big thing I would say, and this all to me comes back to being conscious. People don't stop. And I'm guilty of this. Like, let me let me be perfectly clear that I've got 570 or 60 or however many episodes, the show's done 15 plus million downloads over the last five years. To every episode I create is because I am screwing up in that area. So any advice that I give right now is not from this amazing guru who gets it all right all the time. It's coming from, I'm screwing this up. And I'm spending a lot of time reading and learning how to not screw it up. And I still

screw it up. Here's everything I'm learning, maybe you can figure it out. So with that said, I think we all spend a lot of time asleep, essentially. And when I say that, like that's what I'm talking about with like living reactively and constantly sort of pushing the ball forward rather than stopping to notice where you're standing with that ball then making a choice at where you go part of being conscious part of waking up is recognizing how far you've actually come recognizing where you actually are in relationship to any number of other factors, and then consciously choosing where you want to go. And that recognizing piece is what I consider contentment. It's not necessarily like over the moon happy. It's not necessarily I'm done. It's

about recognizing where you are, who you are, what you've done, and making a choice at what you want going forward. And I think if more people did that, and this is what things like journaling, meditation, and all of these different reflective tools can allow for, if more people did that, I think we would get out of this cycle of success and failure. You know, I will say that, and Shanna knows I always say this, but expectations equal future resentments. And I, again, learned that in Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't think that we should ever have expectations of others or even ourselves. Because if we do you mean? Then how do you set goals? There's a fine line. And I think that you nailed it on the head, Greg. It's the progress piece that people are forgetting and the grace. You're so humble in your podcast. I appreciate that. I love that you admit that you're not perfect and that you're learning from mistakes. I also love you give yourself grace and you give yourself a pat on the back for just the

progress piece for the tiny little leaps. Yeah. And I think a lot of that, I use the term self-empathy, but it means essentially the same thing as grace. I think a lot of that can be changed in our approach to goal setting as a whole. So rather than what most people do of setting a goal, and then looking at their life to try and figure out where they can fit it in. I think more of us need to actually do an audit of our life, figure out what our constraints are, figure out what

our opportunities are, figure out everything that is reality right now. Now, that doesn't mean it's bad, like having children is a constraint,. Having children is a constraint. Having young children is a constraint. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is going to make it harder to do certain things and be consistent in certain areas. So we need to understand what that is and then set our goals from that place. Based on the life that I'm living and the constraints that I have, what goals are within my reach? What things could I possibly actually do right now? And the example I always love to give here is in addition to picking up running over the last few months, I've been on a weight loss journey. So I started back in March,

I was 206, I believe in like 27% body fat. And as of this morning, I'm 189 and like 23%. Congratulations. Thank you. It's been a very hard journey of figuring out what works for my body and learning everything I needed to learn to make that possible. But here's the thing. I couldn't have back in March set a goal of, I want to be 170 and 13% body fat, because that wasn't within reach for me based on the life that I was living, the constraints that I had, and what was going to allow me to actually be successful. What I could do is just set a goal of figuring out my body and my relationship to food. That wasn't within reach for me. I didn't know that that was a thing that I could aspire to. But it wasn't something that I already had. And so I set that goal of let's figure out what my body needs. Let's figure out how to eat better for myself.

Let's figure out how to eat in a way that both gives me energy and tastes delicious. Like let's figure all of these things out. And now this is the outcome of it. Now that I'm here, I can look at based on where I'm at. I now have this knowledge. I now know how my body works. I now know a lot more than I did. Now what's within reach for me. And the answer to that is going to be different than what it would have been back in March, because now I've made progress. So I always try to look at goal setting and I always encourage my listeners to look at goal setting from a place of self-empathy, recognizing where you are, who you are, what your constraints are, and then setting a goal based on that. Because whenever

you make that progress and you're able to get to that tiny leap forward, you're then able to set a different goal based on where you are in that moment, because the context has now changed. You say that success requires sacrifice. Tell us about that. I don't believe that progress and balance are possible at the same time. The visual that I like for this is picture yourself standing up, both feet are on the ground, your hands are at your side, you're in sort of the state of perfect balance, right? Your body is supporting itself in balance. If you were to, let's say there's a table in front of you and your car keys are there.

If you want to pick up those car keys, you have to either take a step forward or you have to reach forward. You have to bend, you have to change that balance and move out of balance for a half a second to be able to gain that thing. Now you'll be able to go back into balance, but if you want to gain those keys, if you want to gain something, you have to sacrifice balance for a short period of time. And so when I say success requires sacrifice, what I mean is, we have to be willing to look at the areas of our lives and recognize what we can let go of for a short window of time. Now, that doesn't mean we let it collapse. That doesn't mean that we completely ignore it. Like, I don't think it's healthy to be so focused on work that you ignore your relationships

or you ignore your health or any of these other areas of life. But if you wanna make real progress in your work or in your relationships or in your fitness or whatever it is, that is going to require an enormous amount of energy and time to figure out. Like just the figuring out part

is gonna require energy and time, much less the actual doing, much less the actual doing, much less the actual maintaining. So if you want to make progress, you have to be able to figure out which other areas of your life you're willing to let stay stagnant, essentially. And you're going to revisit it from time to time to rebalance that portfolio. You're going to revisit it from time to time to make sure that those areas of your life, your life doesn't completely fall apart. But for those moments, you have to be willing to lean forward and sacrifice that balance

if you want to gain anything. And that's what I mean by that. And, you know, I think part of that is also just to go a little bit deeper, but being authentic in the conversations like with your spouse and saying, listen, I'm going to have to go full force and lean forward and go out of balance for a minute and give my podcast 100% for a couple of weeks and being authentic with them and just explaining. So that's where I'm going to be at. And I need your support and I need you to understand it's not that I'm prioritizing it over you. It's just what needs to be done. And so they never choose which areas. They never consciously make that choice of what it is they're going to quote unquote sacrifice.

So they never have those conversations because in their mind, they didn't realize that this needed to happen. And so they just go forward with it. And before you know it, the sacrifice is still being made. You just now never had the conversation with somebody about it. And so now people are getting hurt.

Now people don't understand why. Now people are pushing back against you. And then you get angry and say how they don't support you and yada, yada, yada. But the truth is you screwed your approach up because you didn't recognize that this sacrifice was required. And that's why I try to drive that point home. Success requires sacrifice. It's not a question of if, you have to.

So consciously choose which areas and have whatever conversations you need to have so that everybody's on the same page. If you can do that, I think far more people are willing to support you than you probably think. It's just that you're not good at the communication that is required to earn that support.

And it is something you earn. You don't deserve anyone's support. My girlfriend has been supporting me for the last five years of this show. There was a period where I was not making enough money on my own. I could barely make rent work. And she was in a position to pick up the slack. We had that conversation and it still put strain on our relationship, but we made it work. And now she's going back to school for a

PhD and I'm in a position to pick up the slack. And so we had that conversation and we're making it work, but she couldn't go back to school without recognizing that she has to sacrifice her finances for a period of time in order to gain that outcome that leads to the better finances in the future. And we just have to have those conversations, whether it's with your spouse or friend or your family or whomever it is. Sometimes the conversations with yourself, but you need to have the conversations. Kind of goes back to failure, but in order to learn, you need to experience what doesn't work. So I really love how you were talking about, you know, looking at your constraints. I think I've missed doing that.

It's like you just keep on trucking. You just don't really look at them and address them and come up with a way to maneuver around them. And I love that you said that, that it's not actually failure because you have to learn to experience what doesn't work. I loved how you said that that it's not actually failure because you have to learn to experience what doesn't work I loved how you put that yeah and the constraints thing I think a lot of people miss that I miss that I only recently started talking about this a few months ago I recently developed what I'm calling a new framework for goal setting called leap goals which is loosely based on sort

of the SMART goals framework that is specific, measurable, actionable, relevant, and timed. But the problem is that SMART goals were developed for corporations and businesses, and we've applied it to our lives, and it can be helpful in certain instances. But most of us in our day-to-day lives, our goals don't actually need to be specific. In many cases, when we're trying to create a change, we're looking at long-term lifestyle changes, not so much this specific outcome and then we're done. So I developed LEAP goals to address that and it stands for long-term empathetic actionable process focused. So the long-term, empathetic, actionable, process-focused. So the long-term, of course, is this is a long-term lifestyle change. So your goal is instead of, I want to lose 20 pounds in three months, it's,

I want to improve my relationship to food, or I want to eat more salads, whatever that looks like, but something that you intend to stick around for pretty much the rest of your life. The empathetic part is where am I right now? What are my constraints? And what can I do that will allow me to minimize failure? Because when we look at being empathetic to ourselves and recognizing those constraints, I think the reason that so many people drop off in their goals is because they never address those things. They're still there. They're still holding you back, but you're not addressing it in your goal setting. And you're shocked when in 30 days, you've abandoned the goal because it got too hard. Well, yeah, it got hard because all of these things are holding you back that you're not

considering. And you're just thinking, oh, well, I'm just going to power through. I'm just going to hustle. I'm just gonna hustle. I'm just gonna show up anyway. Or, you know, I didn't get to do this thing tonight. I didn't get to work out today because my kid got sick. But you know what? I'll just work out twice as hard tomorrow. Like we look at our lives and think, well, we should be these computers

that are capable of showing up anyway. And the truth is we're not. Like we are human beings. We should allow ourselves to be human. are capable of showing up anyway. And the truth is, we're not like we are human beings, we should allow ourselves to be human. And by approaching our goals with that understanding of the constraint, it gives us room to be human. And then of course, there's the action piece, what can actually do the actionable and then the process focus, in my opinion, is the part that helps the most day to day. And that is changing the understanding of what success looks like. So going back to my running example, there were plenty of days where

I didn't want to go out for a run. And I hated the idea of running. And it's only been the last like two weeks that I've actually liked running, but I've been running now for four or five months, there were plenty of those days for me to actually get out and allow myself to make that progress. I just needed to shift that instead of, hey, I went out and I ran two miles being my metric for success. It became, hey, I went out and I ran. It didn't matter how long it was. It didn't matter how fast I went. It was just, did I run or not? If I did the thing, if I was in the actual process, then I win. I'm good for that day and I can stop if I want to, or I can keep going if I feel good. I love it. Shanna and I talk a lot about self-love. Where did self-love for you fall

into what you do and sharing with the world, your consistency courses, your podcast, your life, where did self-love fall for you? So this is something that I'll be honest, I've only in the last, really, since my dad passing a little bit before started to really think more about and recognize in my own life because I was, and still in many ways am, like I said, personal development to me has always been data driven. It's always been the logical side. It's always been get it done. And that's the type of person that I am. That's how I was raised, what my father did. So that's always been a part of me. I spent a lot of time hating myself because I

hadn't achieved all the things that I thought I should have achieved. And I want to remind everyone out there, I'm 28. I started this podcast when I was 23. I was very young, but I felt that I needed to have achieved like these massive things that people in their 40s still haven't achieved. I was beating myself up the year after I got out of college because I was still in student loan debt. There's all of these things that I had such high expectations of myself. And it honestly sort of came from childhood in a lot of ways. I was the last of seven children. So one full sibling, two half sisters and four half brothers. Growing up,

my family used to joke that I was the quote unquote millionaire child. So like this idea of grandeur and being this incredible human like was kind of planted whether they intended for it to be or not, like little Greg took it very seriously. And it's only been in the last few years that I've really started to stop and recognize that, quite honestly, I think I am capable of a lot of the things that I've always wanted and that I've always felt I was capable of. But the truth is, my not being there right now, like that has to be okay. Because I still have to live with myself every single day that I'm not there. And that's something that I think we often forget as we get so focused on this outcome we want to create, we get so focused on these things that we want,

we forget every day that we don't have that is still a day we have to be alive and here and happy and doing things. And we can't get so focused on these things that it stops us from respecting ourselves. And it stops us from loving ourselves. And it stops us from even wanting to take the action because taking action is a, an act of self-love. There's this great Terry Crews video that I shared a few years back, that really changed the way that I looked at discipline and like self discipline. I've always hated that word because it has such a negative connotation. But he framed it for me as an act of

self love. Like you're not going to have that donut because you love yourself enough to want the outcome of not having that you are going to show up for that donut because you love yourself enough to want the outcome of not having that you are going to show up for that workout because you love yourself enough to want to treat your body well. But you can't do those things. If you keep beating yourself up for not being in this imaginary place you invented in your head. That's been the last few years for me of really trying to unlearn a lot of what I learned as a young kid and developed as a young kid and really trying to respect myself enough to recognize where I am and what I'm capable of doing without that being, well, I'm a piece of crap because I'm not there yet.

Yeah. You can't really truly be successful if you don't love yourself. Success has been defined in such a materialistic way. And we've just been so conditioned to think that success means a big house, a Range Rover, a Tesla. And it was at that point in my life where I realized that, no, once I had that self-love, I knew I had achieved success because that was the moment I was able to go just to be a mom is enough to just be is enough. I had to do work. And I think that's the part that people forget is I think that that's the big hangup. It's the doing different. It's that action piece. You can't get self-love. You can't be successful. You can't do these things unless you get into action. You talk about that. It's doing different

and it's putting in the footwork because if you don't do different, nothing will change. Yeah, I would put it this way. Everything that I'm doing with the show, everything that I'm trying to put out is my attempt to learn self love. It's my attempt to become that person more so than already having been there. And I love what you just said about like, just being a mom is enough. Just being this is enough. I've even started to apply that to my work itself. I published my first book based on the podcast last January, I think. I got caught up. Like I spent so much time not writing the book. I had like a six month window that the publisher gave me.

And for the first four months, I did no work on it because I was so stressed out about, oh, it's my first book. It's based on this podcast. Like I need it to be a bestseller. I need it to be this. I need it to be that. And having all of these expectations about what it should do in order to set up this imaginary career that I had like pictured in my head. The thing that really helped

me to get through writing it was shifting that from, I need this book to do X, Y, Z to I need this book to just exist. That's its only job. Like if it exists, I have been successful. I now have a book that's out in the world and that's always our step. Like it has to exist first, whatever it is, whether it's, it's a piece of work that you're creating or something in your life, it has to exist first before anything can come from it. Before you can get the New York times, before you can come from it. Before you can get the New York Times, before you can get the sales, before you can get anything, it first has to be a thing that is out there. And I think that if you can treat your life and the things you're trying to do in

a similar way, then we take a lot of the pressure off of situations because it doesn't matter anymore. And not only that, but just trusting that once you create it, it's going to land on the ears or it's going to land in the hands or it's going to land exactly where it's supposed to. And trusting that the universe will get that message out there. I think your podcast is a beautiful representation of that. It's been very successful. You just went all in

and it existed and look what it's doing. It's reaching people. And then it's stepping back and going, that's enough. And then it's trusting that whatever comes from it will come from it, but it's being okay with whatever that is. Because I think when we just say, oh, put this out and trust that the universe will deliver on it, like that still leaves it open for people to see the result that comes and says, oh, well, I guess the universe doesn't like me that much. Like, I guess the universe like didn't want this to happen. But the truth is, one person listening to it one person reading it is still an enormous an enormous amount of value an enormous amount of help for so many uh out there i talk about it all the time i'm shockingly open with it but nobody remembers that i hosted two podcasts prior to this one

that did zilch like absolute zero sounded terrible um like they they are honestly not even a footnote. Like they don't exist. And people have shockingly short memories. I mean, I was just so attracted to your podcast and the, you know, just the breaking down of it simply. I mean, you talk about the effects of houseplants on mental health. You talk about how to find your voice. You talk about how Fortnite helped your personal growth, which

I need to have my son listen to that one because I appreciate what you're putting out there because again, it's stuff that people need to hear. And I love the diversity of like your topics. Thank you so much and now it's time for break that shit down if there was one thing that you want to get out to our listeners all big changes come from the tiny leaps you take every day never give too much more context on that in the show itself so I like doing doing that in this environment. At the end of the day, where you end up 10, 20 years from now is a direct result of a number of factors, some of them outside of your control, some of them related to politics, some of them related to any number of things. But one key

factor that drives a massive percentage of it that you do control is what it is you are doing right now in this moment today. Like the choices you make do matter. And it's okay if they're not quite right. It's okay if they're not perfect because you cannot see where it's going to go. You can't like look ahead and create this imaginary future and try to match up your choices to that. It doesn't quite work that way. But you can try to make the best choices in each individual moment for whatever it is you think you want and then go along for the ride.

All big changes come from the tiny leaps you take every day. Is part of those tiny leaps also celebrating those tiny leaps? Of course. I give myself a lot of room to not be a workaholic because I am naturally a workaholic. You've got to give yourself space to work hard and you've got to give yourself space to not and to relax and to recognize how hard you do work because otherwise you just keep going and going and eventually you crash. Good advice. Please tell our listeners where they can find you, where they can pick up your book and any other new things you want to throw out there. Are you still doing the consistency courses?

Yes. So you're already listening to a podcast. Wherever you're listening to this, do a search for Tiny Leaps, Big Changes. All I'm asking is that you give one episode a try. It doesn't matter which, not gonna recommend one because there are so many topics. Pick whatever jumps out at you in this moment,

give it a shot. And then the second step to that is regardless of what you thought, if you hated it, I wanna hear from you. If you loved it, I wanna hear from you. Find the podcast on Instagram at Tiny Leaps,

give the page a follow and shoot me a message. I talk to everybody and I love getting into those conversations. And then finally, if you want to sort of dive deeper into a lot of the stuff we talked about here, so leap goals, consistency, building self-empathy into your goal setting,

building awareness into your day-to-day systems, whatever it is, if you want to learn how to be more consistent in your day-to-day actions towards those goals that you've set, you can learn more at consistencycourse.com. That is a course I put together called The Consistency Code that dives far deeper into this stuff than we were able to go in today's episode. So consistencycourse.com.

I know we could have talked forever. And you know what? Maybe we'll just have to have you on again. I wanted to say I absolutely love how important it is to to interact and that you put out that platform and you say it in every single one of your podcast episodes that you really love to engage with your listeners. I love that you do that. I love that you want to hear directly from them and that you answer to every single one of them. It's rad. Thank you. I mean, as you know, podcasting does not make it easy to build community. It's not like YouTube where there's a comment section

and you can go in and talk to people. So it's really important to me that people reach out because one, it helps drive new episodes and allows me to better serve in that way. But two, it allows me to get a better understanding of who's out there and what they're struggling with and how different people's lives are than mine. And helps me stay humble in recognizing that I don't know anything about the world. I don't know anything about this particular person and the struggles they have.

So I can't be a guru. Like I have to be a student that's sharing things. Well, I don't know if you're aware of this or not, but you're a light worker, someone who cares deeply about other people and helping others. And you're appreciated. Thank you so much for your time. We learned a lot. And I can't wait to share this episode with our listeners. They're gonna love it. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. This honestly was a was a pleasure. One of the most fun interviews I've done. Good. Yay. Have a good one. Hey, Sense of Soul listeners. Join Mandy and I and break through the glass ceiling standing in your way to having the success of your dreams.

We joined our friend and colleague, Shelley Roberts, who is hosting a complimentary online summit, bringing together over 20 experts, including us, to share our wisdom on clearing what is holding you back from being unstoppable. This virtual interview series will help you uncover the surprising ways to have more success at work and in life. So sign up and reserve your spot at no cost to join us. You'll discover the wisdom, tools, and strategies you need to finally take your life to the next level. This life-changing summit, Breaking Through the Glass Ceiling, free video series can be found at www.breakingthroughtheglassceilingsummit.com backslash sense-of-soul. And we will be posting that link in the episode notes. We are all sharing

amazing free gifts and resources designed to assist you on this incredible notes. We are all sharing amazing free gifts and resources designed to assist you on this incredible journey. We are very honored to be part of this. Yeah, so check it out. Thanks for being with us today. We hope you will come back next week. If you like what you hear, don't forget to rate, like, and subscribe. Thank you. We rise to lift you up. Thanks for listening.