This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 012 / #SpecialEdition: The Problem Is How You See The ̶P̶r̶o̶b̶l̶e̶m̶ Pandemic With Lisa Kalmin

Episode Date: April 1, 2020

Nicole welcomes back guest Lisa Kalmin, Transformational Trainer, Speaker and Author to help us navigate together and think differently about our new normal during COVID-19. Now is the time to dig deep, get creative, empower others and transcend the challenges together! (and drink wine and eat cheese… or is that just me??) Ladies, during these times it’s especially important to give tons of grace and patience to both yourself and those around you. We’re sending you love! This is Woman’s Work To learn more about what we are up to outside of this podcast, visit us at NicoleKalil.com

Hello, ladies. We are coming to you today with a special sort of bonus podcast where we can talk a little bit about what is going on in our world right now and how we're relating to it. And more importantly, how we can get through this and come out the other side, hopefully better, different, whatever is important to you. So I've asked my coach, Lisa Kalman, back for this episode. For those of you who didn't listen to episode eight yet, the problem is how you see the problem. Lisa Kalman was our guest on that episode. And the title of the episode is the same as the title of her book. And she, again, is my personal coach. And I just thought she offers such a great perspective, such a different and unique perspective. And I know I

could use some coaching right now. So basically, I'm going to ask Lisa to coach me. And by coaching me, she's hopefully going to coach you as well. So Lisa, thank you so much for joining us and for helping us kind of maneuver through this and think about it differently. Yeah, absolutely. And just first, let me check in on you. How are you? How are you doing with JJ Home all the time and J Home all the time? How's that going? Well, it's funny. If you would have asked me two days ago, you would have gotten a very different answer. I kept saying like, so I'm an introvert. So I was like, I win at social distancing. I'm like going to crush this. Right. And I felt happy and it didn't really feel scarier, but not that different from a day to day sort of, you know, living. But I don't know what happened a couple days ago.

I think I just hit a wall and I hit it hard. And I think a lot of it had to do with just watching JJ and seeing her get a little bit more frustrated about things she wasn't getting frustrated about two weeks ago. Knowing that she's watching TV and on the iPad more than she would have been before all of this. Jay and I are still trying to have calls and work, but then be with her and then support each other. I don't know. I feel drained. Yeah. I think it's an opportunity for all of us to reinvent the way we relate to our partnerships, certainly with our spouses and even our, our coworkers, et cetera. We have to work things out. And also just a reminder to, you know, me and you and everybody else, you else, our children feel what's going on in the world.

They're experiencing all of what's happening. And I believe that their little barometers are even more sensitive than ours are. So I think it's really important to give tons of grace and patience to yourself and to everybody else right now. My twins are 10. It's gone from very pleasant and wonderful to a complete crap show, depending on the moment. I'm glad it's not just me. No, that was pretty much every mom I've talked to. And again, I think it's an opportunity to work things out with your partners, your spouses, and get support from your children too. They want to help out and make things better as well. And one of the things that, you know, as I've been working with people and really working with myself, there's nothing I'm

going to talk about today that I'm not working through at daily moment to moment myself. And I think the first thing I want to talk about is fear and the collective fear that's occurring. I mean, we can't really escape that because it's going on and our own personal way that we're experiencing fear. And, you know, for years, I heard people talk about fear as false evidence appearing real. And then I was on a webinar actually with Jack Canfield, who's a great teacher, transformational teacher. Many people know him, follow him. He's the chicken soup for the soul guy. And he talked about fear being fantasized experiences appearing real. And it was really powerful as he talked about it, because as we're fantasizing

about what's going to happen, it appears real to us. And a reminder that our brain cannot tell the difference between what is reality and what we imagine to be reality. So when we fantasize something negative or scary or hurtful coming in the future, our brain actually thinks it's happening. And then it sends all those signals to our amygdala and our fight or flight response. And we know the physical reactions that we go through and how it suppresses our immune system, which nobody wants to do right now. And the whole opportunity that we want to stay out of that fantasized experience, appearing real and into the present moment so that we can not let fear kind of overrun us. Because I think that's one thing that if we personally, if I listen to too much news, if I let myself, my mind go out into the future and make stuff up, I can get really stressed out. Yeah. I've heard this and said it myself

several times too, this feeling of like one moment being like, everything's fine. Focus on what you can control or focus on the positive or, you know, be grateful, like all of these things. But then like one minute later, my brain goes into what if this happens or what about that? Or it can be moment to moment. So I guess my question in that, or what are some tips or what are some ways of being, or, you know, I think back to be, do, have that we talked about on our previous episode, what are some ways to catch yourself so that we don't go down the rabbit hole or down that, you know, drain of what could, what might, what, you know, all the bad stuff. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I want to kind of go back to one of the key fundamental principles in the,

in the book, uh, problem is how you see the go back to one of the key fundamental principles in the book, Problem is How You See the Problem. And one of the key principles is that events are neutral. Now, when I say that, very few people are experiencing neutrality right now with themselves or with what's happening. But events have no significant inherent meaning. And just a reminder of what I said in that podcast, we are meaning making machines. That is what distinguishes us from other beings on the planet. We have intelligence. And so we're not going to have neutral experiences around anything. Right now, Now the event is such that our meaning making is pretty intense. So one thing to remember is to notice what am I making this mean?

So I do live trainings. I have had two of them cancel. It's a big part of my career and my financial well-being. And so when I think about that, I can have a lot of different interpretations. I can be afraid, I can be frustrated, I can be sad, I can be scared. Or I can go, okay, when I think that way, is that empowering me? Is that forwarding me? Is that uplifting me? No, not really. So how can I begin to relate to that in a way that could? First things first is notice your experience. We talked about this on our podcast before. If you don't experience the, if I don't experience

my stress, my anxiety, and that doesn't mean stay stuck in it for days, but if I don't have this moment of noticing, wow, that stresses me out. Why does that stress me out? Well, I can go down the list of taking care of my family, my, you know, uh, home, all of the things that we think about and we take care of as, as women. Well, does it mean that I can't take care of my family? No, it actually doesn't. You know, I have other resources. I can figure this out. And I'm praying that most people can.

So what am I really stressed out about? Well, it's the unpredictability, the unknown. So once I can kind of unpack it a little bit, notice what I'm experiencing, then I can go, OK, what's the opportunity? Who can I be right now? What is this situation calling me up to be in my life right now that is a opportunity or possibility or gift, even a gift? So that's the beginning part of that. The second piece is very much like when we learn to drive a car.

I don't know if you remember when you first learned to drive a car and your hands are at 10 and two or nine and three, and you click the signal and you think about every single movement. Now, I think we talked about this. Maybe you drive your car to work. You don't even know how you got there, right? Every moment is an opportunity to be rigorous. Now it's hard to think about every moment, what are you thinking about? But start to rigorously be with what are my thoughts, what are my feelings, how is this affecting my energy, my quality, my way of being, what energy I'm bringing to my family or to my clients. And then have a conscious shift. It's about being conscious versus unconscious. I don't know if that helps. It does help. I think it's, you know, letting yourself feel your feelings. But the part that has been most helpful for me is, okay, but where is this coming

from? Why am I feeling this? And letting myself think about that. And then to your point, consciously choosing another perspective, another way of being, another choice in the moment. And easier said than done sometimes. Absolutely. And I think, you know, having some grace or some forgiveness for yourself in those moments where it might be harder, I think can be helpful because I don't know about every woman, but I know a lot of us, we have a tendency to sort of beat ourselves up and, you know, do the shoulda, coulda, woulda a lot. And so I think great tools and also, you know, is there an importance of giving ourself grace and forgiveness and space during all this? Yeah, absolutely. I think we are embarking on a whole new territory

of how we go into the future. And one of the things to remember is as a culture, we'll look back on this time. And I want to say for those of you who have children, this will be a time where your children remember this happening. If they're old enough to have that thought, mine are, your daughter is. And what do we want them to remember about this time? What do we want them to remember about this time? What do we want them to experience about this time? One of the things that I love is that when, I don't know who did this study, but the favorite family activity of Americans is camping. It's not watching TV. It's not going to sports games. It's camping. And if you think about the opportunity that camping is, now I'm not a great camper, but thank goodness my wife

is really a great camper and she does such a great job at making it really fun and pleasant. People love camping because so much stuff happens that is unpredictable, challenging. It rains, the tent doesn't go up, some animal steals the food, something. We love it because as a family unit, we have to transcend the challenges. And I really believe that this will be one of those times as we look back in our life, that as a family unit, we'll remember how did we work together? How did we play together? How did we come together in this moment of crazy uncertainty and unpredictability? And I think it'll be a great time.

And the other reminder for all of us is, as you're trying to navigate kids and working, go outside. I know we can, go outside. I know we can't go outside and congregate, but you can stay six plus feet away from people, whether it's walking, whether it's jogging, whether it's going on a hike, whatever it is, using that time to actually breathe and to get outside in nature and to take a break from just our home environment.

I think that's an incredibly important, um, immune and mood booster. Um, as you were sharing the story about camping and literally, you know, as you said, transcend the challenges, you know, that's what I, I, it was, I was looking out my window and Jay and JJ kind of ran by, she's chasing bubbles. Um, and he's doing something with, with her out there. I know he's got calls later and I have this now, and we're just sort of going back and forth and it's certainly not perfect. And we certainly are having our moments, but I love what you said about what is the favorite or what people remember. I think what our kids will hold on to

is not the perfection, but the transcending the challenge together. Yeah, and spending time together. You know, the opportunity that exactly what you said, I didn't just picture it, Jay running after Jay, Jay blowing bubbles. Like what a gift that is right in the middle of the day to be able to do that with dad

and yeah, on weekends and stuff, but just the experience together. And I think it's an opportunity to also forgive each other. You know, as I said, kids feel that energy. You know, we've had, you know, definitely a few challenges with the boys being home, but what is it to come together and in those moments of, let me just say those moments I haven't been the most graceful or patient to actually just apologize to my kids and be authentic about it and ask them for their forgiveness in terms of who I was being in that

moment and demonstrate that we're in this together. So on the, in this together note, um, I know, well, I can just speak for myself. I'm, you know, a little worried about our community. I'm worried about the people who, you know, can't do their work. I think about, you know, the person who does my hair and, um, I get my eyelashes done. I can't do that. And like the, you know, the things that, um, are so easy for me to set aside, but are so meaningful for them. So how, as a transformational leader and coach, are you talking to your clients or how are we collectively able to support our community during all this? Yeah, that's a great question. And I think we each have an opportunity to really step back and think about that.

You know, who can we contribute to? One of the things I'm doing is I'm just taking my book and putting each chapter on Facebook Live right now just so I can empower people in their mindset and their thinking and the way they're relating. I know that we talked about picking up, mostly we've been eating at home, but picking up food. And when we do, we want to pick up food from a local restaurant, not a big chain, because those are the mom and pop shops that are so struggling. Paying my housekeeper, even though she's not coming. Things like that.

So anything we can do for exactly those. I know Lynn Sheridan, my business partner, and you know, well, I was paying for her haircut, even though she didn't have one. And the things that we can do there, a friend of ours is a nurse in San Francisco on the front line. Somebody brought groceries and put them on her doorstep and left them for her because she's working, you know, 24 seven. There are ways for you to contribute. Think about that. Are there elderly people anywhere that you know that you can drop off food, drop off medication? There, I'm sure, are many different blogs right now talking about this as well. And one of the

things, you know, to talk about also is as we're coming out of this, what are the ways that we can be creative about the work we do? And a lot of your work is coaching and a lot of, you know, the podcasts are audio and there's the virtual side. But, you know, if you think about when Uber and Lyft came on the scene, they literally took out the car in driving and Airbnb took out the hotel in vacations. So what do you, what do we do? And I'm thinking about this in terms of my work, what do we do that can be transcended into something that doesn't have to have me be there? And what are those creative opportunities? What are the ways that you can begin to take your talents and your gifts and bring them into the world and your community in a way that can not only make contributions, but also ultimately

turn into a career or something successful for you financially. So these are just good questions to be in and begin to think about who are you, what do you do, what are your talents that if they no longer can be served the way they used to be served, what are ways you can serve them? Mm-hmm. Yeah. My team and I, we've been having daily calls and we, every single call is centered around how do we support our community? How do we support our people? So we're asking, how do we support women? How do we support professional women, working women? And it's really been fun and kind of crazy, all the cool and creative ideas. Like, I think we've all had moments like, why didn't we think about this before? Why haven't we been doing this all along? And it's certainly bringing the three of us together. And I think we're all having a lot more fun and a lot more, um, maybe not fun. That's not the right word, but like,

we just feel so much better about everything that we're doing right now. It feels so much more impactful. Uh, and you know, it's a different lens than we've been thinking about things from, I mean, we always think about impact, but not nearly at the level that we have. I hope we continue forward in that way, even on the other side of this. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's going on in most people's, you know, organizations and certainly entrepreneurs as well as probably big organizations as well. And this is absolutely a time to reconnect with what is our purpose? What is your vision? Who are you in this? You know, I think the question, who am I committed to being as all of this unfolds is a critical question for all of us as women. Creativity, as you're talking about and in fact somebody i know is homeschooling um

friday saturday sunday or thursday through sunday and then giving space for her work for the first part of the week so she's been flexible even how she's taking that on because it serves her son he's a little younger than than my, but it also gives her opportunity to do what she does in her business so it doesn't have to suffer. So there's just another creative opportunity that I didn't even think of. I'm like, well, Monday through Friday, we homeschool. That's what we're doing right now. So just the incredible gift that this has been for us to think outside the box. And also, you know, what a gift for us to take moments of time to learn and to grow. I think I've ingested so much information in the last two weeks, more than I ever take time to do. I am religiously meditating right now, which I think

is incredibly important. All the things that we know are important for our soul's growth and our soul's nurturing and the nutrition for our soul, I think is super important as well. You know, it's funny as you're saying that, and it sparked in my head earlier too, and what a gift it's been to involve JJ in things I didn't typically involve her in before. So like we did yoga together. There's like a frozen yoga or something like that. We did that together. Or, you know, we, you talked about ways that we can help people in our community. I've been trying, Jay and I have been trying to engage JJ in that. So, you know, writing a letter to like an elder care facility or drawing a picture or, you know, so like I know a lot of the things that you had suggested and a couple of them I wrote down are ways that

I'm trying to help the community or help the women in my life or the entrepreneurs or what have you, but I'm really trying to be extra conscious of how do I include JJ in this so that she participates in giving and participates in thinking about other people? Because I do hope on the other side of that, of all of this, that that is something she takes away. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's incredibly important. And one of the great equalizers of the coronavirus is that it doesn't, I think I read that somebody said that, you know, the virus doesn't have a passport and it doesn't know the difference between older, younger, little bit older is at risk, but it's now clear that it's not just that, as well as any

socioeconomic barriers. So this has been an opportunity for us to see that we really are in this together and that we, each of us, has an opportunity to contribute. And I really have an authentic belief that as we come together and literally raise the consciousness of ourselves. We're supporting raising the consciousness of our planet. So I know you don't have a crystal ball, but how do we look forward from where we are now? Like what, what are our opportunities through and on the other side of the coronavirus?

I really believe that things may be a little bit different and uncomfortable for a while. And one of the questions I would, I'm asking myself and I would invite everybody to ask is, how can I create value in the world? And that may be as a parent, and it may be as a entrepreneur, and it may be as a professional, but what's the value I bring? And because I truly believe those of us that are contributing and creating value, and right now, you may be creating tons of value that may not be seeing a direct correlation with financial you know reward and what is the value i'm creating in the world because i believe that culturally we're moving more towards ai artificial intelligence i mean i think the it's going to be the people that are out creating,

being creative, making a difference, empowering other people, bringing forth something in the world that impacts and influences and contributes. And I believe that every human being has that talent. Every human being has a gift that they can contribute to the world. And I think that's really a clear focus. I believe that standing in our, what I'll call our vision of health, well-being, spiritual well-being, physical well-being, emotional well-being, physical well-being, emotional well-being, and really believing in that and visualizing in that. I don't know what that's going to look like, but that we have an opportunity to take care of each other in a different way. Don't know the mechanism yet. And that every moment is, even if it's the next moment that

you and I are talking here, is a blank space that is either going to get filled in by the past, even if it's the past from a moment ago, two weeks ago, yesterday's stock market, whatever it is, or we're going to fill that in by our vision, by experience of the future that we want. And last critical thing I'll say about that is like giving yourself permission and actually transcending your energy as well as your feelings into that future. So we create through our thoughts, we create through our speaking, we create through our being, we create through our actions, the more I'm living in that moment, difficult as it is right now, the more I will bring the manifestation that into the physical world. So I know that's a little woo-woo, but, you know, I think that's, I think like, hey, why not? You know, let's, let's play it out that way.

I always feel fired up when I talk to you. Thank you. So you mentioned this earlier. I want to reiterate that you are reviewing a chapter of your book on Facebook Live. And my understanding is the recordings are still there. I've been watching a few of them live. So if you don't already, you can follow Lisa on Facebook. It's Lisa Kalman, K-A-L-M-I-N. And grab those, listen to those. It's game changers. And then also, I know you're hosting a free workshop in April, Money, Wealth, and Miracles. Can you tell us just quickly a little bit about that? Yeah, I believe that one of the things that's freaking people out right now is what's

happening with the financial world and particularly our own money, our jobs, our retirements, et cetera. So I'm hosting a free workshop in April and I'll post that on my Facebook about how do we relate to money, wealth, and the miracle of flow of energy. Money is really just an exchange of energy. How do I, even in the craziest of times like right now, really tap into that flow and allow for what the abundance that the universe wants to bring us? So we're going to tap into that on that workshop.

Awesome. And so Facebook is a good way. And then also the website, which is worldworkstraining.com, right? Correct. Absolutely. Okay. So Lisa, thank you so much as always. And ladies, no matter what, I think we all agree that we are going to come out the other side of this different. Things are changing and they won't ever be exactly the same as they were before the coronavirus. And we have a choice about how it's going to be different and who we're going to be and how we are individually and collectively going to come out the other side

of this. So I say we choose to come out stronger, healthier, and more connected than we ever were before. This is Woman's Work.