Well with Arielle Lorre - 380: Daily Microhabits to Overcome Fear: The Steps to Leave Your Comfort Zone and Reach Your Highest Potential with Dr. Margie Warrell

Episode Date: March 19, 2025

Dr. Margie Warrell is a a bestselling author, leadership advisor and international authority on human potential. She joins the show to for an incredibly inspiring conversation around fear, courage and how to leave your comfort zone to live the life you dream of. We talk how to discern between fear that’s serving you and fear that’s stifling you, the 2 types of courage, the danger of comfort, leaving relationships, using setbacks for good, mastering self doubt and daily micro habits to overcome fear.This episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct, or indirect financial interest in products, or services referred to in this episode.Save 15% off my favorite red light face mask at boncharge.com and use code BLONDE.Go to prolonlife.com/BLONDE for 15% off a 5-day nutrition program. Visit openphone.com/BLONDE for 20% off 6 months. Go to www.YNAB.com/well for an exclusive three-month free trial with no credit card required.Go to ZOE.com and use code WELL10 to get 10% off. Visit ritual.com/BLONDE for 25% off your first month. Produced by Dear MediaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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In a world of ever-changing wellness trends and information, what does it mean to truly be well? I'm Ariel Lurie and I'm going to explore this with you. I am bringing you candid conversations that will equip you with everything you need to live your best life and look good doing it. Think of well as your go-to resource for all of the latest in wellness and me as your internet bestie. Well, let's get into it. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the show. am so excited about today's episode. Oh my gosh, it is so inspiring. It is maybe my favorite episode that I have done this year and I've done a lot of really great ones. So that is saying a lot.

I am talking to Dr. Margie Worrell. She is a bestselling author. She's a leadership advisor and international authority on human potential. She pairs over 25 years of international experience with her background in business, psychology, coaching, and leadership development to bring globally grounded insights to the complex challenges of individuals, leaders, and organizations today. She is trusted by enterprises such as NASA, Salesforce, Dell, Google, UN Foundation, and Amazon. She helps to lead programs which foster cultures of courage to embolden leadership, improve decision-making, and accelerate growth. And she is on the show today to talk about fear and overcoming fear to reach our maximum human potential.

So we are talking about how to close the gap between fear and courage, how to leave your comfort zone to live the life that you dream of. We talk about different types of fear, some are good, some are not so good. We talk different types of courage. We talk leaving relationships, using setbacks for good, mastering self-doubt, and daily micro-reliven. habits that we can all do to overcome fear. She also has this incredible exercise that will really change your perspective on how you live your life. This entire episode, I was just trying to write things down as fast as I could because everything that she says is just so, so inspiring. I know you guys are going to absolutely love this one. Please enjoy Dr. Margie Whirl.

Okay, welcome. Great to be with you. The topic of fear and courage are things that are very relevant to me, fear in particular. It's something that I have grappled with my whole life. I have an intimate relationship with it. We'll put it that way. And as I've been preparing for this episode and getting familiar with your work, it's just it really speaks to me so much. And I know so many people struggle with this. So I'm really looking forward to diving into all of that today. But why don't you introduce yourself to the audience? Because you've had a really incredible career. And I actually saw something today where it said you're an author, advisor, and international authority. on human potential, which I love.

Yeah, well, I mean, you only have to listen to my accent for a few seconds to know. I didn't grow up around here. So, yeah, my name is Margie Worrell, and I often have to tell people that, no, it's not Margie, because in the U.S., obviously, people read it that way. And, yeah, I spent my first 18 years not venturing much beyond the backpatic of my parents' dairy farm in rural Australia. But I've spent several, many decades since then, you know, living and working around the world and raising four kids and moving continents and pursuing a path that has been almost like a calling to me. And it's funny because people often ask me, you know, why are you so passionate about courage and overcoming fear? And, you know, when you just said you're very intimate with your relationship with fear, well, yeah, me too. And they say we teach best what we most need to learn.

So maybe that's why I feel so passionate around helping people to be braver and overcoming their own fear because I've had to spend my entire life doing it myself. I still am. It's not like you're ever done. And so, yeah, I've had a very multifaceted career path. It certainly hasn't been linear. I didn't ever set out to, I never had a business plan or a strategic plan. I just have moved toward what has given me energy and what I felt convicted to be doing.

Amazing. Well, I would love to hear a little bit about your relationship with fear. And maybe we can talk about what exactly is fear and how does it show up? Because I think that people might hear fear and think, you know, you've talked about the spine tingling feeling and your hair raising. And it really shows up in so many more nuanced ways. So how did it show up for you? And what do we mean even when we talk about fear? Yeah. Well, I mean, fear is one of many emotions that are part of the human condition, right?

And it shows up in many different ways. It can manifest could look like people who are really arrogant sometimes, you know, and they're trying to posture and let them, everyone know how good they are. Because deep down, they're terrified of not being good enough, you know. It can look like deep self-doubt, which is how I've experienced a lot of fear. It's just a doubt in my own abilities and worthiness. It can look like people who can be isolating themselves from other people and cutting themselves off. But it can also look like people who have to be the center of attention all the time. So it can show up in so many different ways. But I think for me, you know, that little voice in the back of my head that's going, who do you think you are to do that?

you know, people are going to realize you're not good enough, you know, starting at a young age, you're not pretty enough, you're not smart enough, and, you know, getting maybe a little more sophisticated as the years have gone by. But I think just recognizing fear is an emotion, but it's one of the most potent emotions. And our unfaced fears, the ones we haven't really looked at and dug down and pulled apart and pulled off the layers, that is where I believe our deepest fears. power lies, our deepest potential lies, our highest purpose lies. And so that takes some digging. Yeah, absolutely. I remember hearing somebody say that everything that we want is on the other side of fear. And that's something that I could relate a lot to. And in my own experience, I feel like

fear really dictated my life when I was younger, to your point, all of those insecurities and fears that a lot of us have, a lot of messaging that we receive. But for me, my solution to that, starting in my teens was to use drugs and alcohol because I was afraid of being myself and being authentic and I was afraid of what you were thinking about me and I thought that I knew what you wanted me to be all of this noise inside my head that took me down a road of really debilitating alcoholism and addiction and when I got sober 11 years ago I had to actually do an exercise where I did a fear inventory and I was. was able to recognize how it really touched every aspect of my life. And I think that I'm in a

unique position in that I almost died from that alcoholism and addiction. And so when I got sober, I feel fear every day. It's my thing. Some people have problems in different areas, right? Fear is my big thing. But I feel like I got a second chance at life. And my world got so small when I was in that alcoholism and addiction that I just made a decision. 11 years ago to just say, fuck it. And as cliche as it sounds, like feel the fear and do it anyway. But so many people struggle to find that courage, right? And that's what we're going to be talking about a lot today. Yeah, that's, you're right. And, you know, I feel like I'm so grateful for that experience because if I didn't have that, I think I would be really constrained by that

fear still. So how can people identify their fears maybe? Because you said you dig down. You and you kind of unpack those and you realize that's what your calling is, where your potential lies. How can they go about that? Well, I think sometimes people go, oh, I'm not afraid of anything. Yeah. I'm not scared of anything. I say whatever I want. Nothing bothers me.

And then I'm like, you know, and how's that working for you? I'm like, oh, I'm so happy with my life. I'm like, uh-huh. Like anyone who has to tell you consistently how happy they are with their life or how secure they are with themselves, honestly, to me, as a sign of a lack of sometimes. self-awareness because those who are most evolved will tell you we never overcome all fear. And in fact, we shouldn't even try. I mean, we're here today just to kind of, we just step back for a moment.

We humans are wired for safety and self-preservation. And while we don't have to worry about being eaten by a tiger on the plains of Africa anymore, we still have this fear deeply rooted into our brains from 60,000, years ago as a self-protective mechanism. And so, yeah, our brains haven't evolved much in the last 60,000 years, but the world that we live in has evolved immensely, even in the last 20 years. And so our brains haven't kept up with the world that we're living in. And so that's why we see so many people struggling with anxiety. But just recognizing that it's not about fear eradication or elimination. It is about fear regulation. And courage has two core components. One is

the willingness to take action, like you just said, to feel that fear and do it anyway. And the other part is to manage our fear, because often we're more afraid than we need to be. And we have this distorted perception of risk and danger. And I think the devices that we hold in our hands, the news streams, you know, with algorithms engineered to stoke insecurity, to make us feel afraid, to push us out into these to these polarized places, these echo chambers that give us a sense of right. and superiority and certainty. But I think, you know, whenever I'm talking to someone and they're sharing what's going on in their life, I'm like, you know, what is it that's going

in your life that isn't as you'd like it to be? You know, what is it that's getting in the way of you feeling peace and joy and connection and purpose? And wherever you're not feeling those emotions fairly regularly, there's some fear in there that's disconnecting you. It's disconnecting you from your peace, from your worthiness, from your adequacy. If you're always feeling like, I've got to be looking a million dollars or I've got to be impressing everybody and proving myself how good I am and keeping people happy. I'm terrified to say no to something or say what's really going on for me in case people judge me badly. Like, okay, that's where your work is. Like, that's your work to do. And, you know, having done this work myself for a long time, I can tell you the

work's never done. It keeps showing up in different ways. You know, the higher you climb, the heart of the wind blows, another level, another devil, just when you think you've conquered that fear, okay, it's going to show up in another form. And having work with people that have climbed some pretty big mountains, you know, professionally, etc., it shows up in different ways again. And I would just go whenever you're not feeling really centered and at peace in yourself, whenever you care about what others are thinking and what's going on around you matters than what their internal state, like, there's an invitation, a silent invitation to look at. What is fear telling me right now and what is it that I need to look at that maybe is hard for me to look at?

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www.w.w.wynab.com slash well. That's y'nab.com slash well. Hi, I'm Elizabeth Endress, a wellness founder for nearly a decade. My passion for feeling really good and commitment to the deep inner work have led me here, where I'll be sharing all the modalities that have helped me and sitting down weekly for unfiltered conversations with healers, practitioners, founders, and dear friends. I truly didn't believe emotions caused chronic symptoms until I started healing and realizing that my type A highly sensitive personality was very much linked to my skin and gut issues, pelvic pain and more.

If you were the sensitive one in the family growing up, the wellness process podcast is for you. You can listen to the wellness process podcast wherever you get your podcasts. I am so happy you're here. I think it's probably hard to discern in some situations. Like what is regular fear and then what is this kind of disproportionate fear? Because to your point, like fear is useful, right? We need fear. So how can people differentiate between that?

Yeah. Discerning between the fears. that are serving you and the fears that are stifling you, keeping you playing small, keeping you stark, stoking stress that's not, that is not helpful stress. So just stepping back, you know, as I said, our brains are exquisitely wide with like this inbuilt radar that's on attention all the time to potential threats. And that includes threats to our sense of status, like in-group status. Like, I hope everyone, you know, hope I stay on the invite list. I hope I get the promotion, you know, etc. So just recognizing that's always there, but how do we discern that? Well, okay, if you let this

fear determine your actions, let's play that forward. How is that going to work if you play that forward? And often our fear keeps us playing too safe. It keeps us small. You and I were talking just before we started about having podcast and you started just at home and which is kind of what I'm still doing. I've got my own little, you know, scrappy at home podcast. But, But often people will say, I really want to do something. I want to write a book. I want to start a podcast. I want to change jobs.

And they're not doing it. And so what's the gap between your ability to take action to do the thing you say you want to do? And then doing it, just starting toward it. And fear is what creates that gap between potential and action. And it takes courage to close that gap. So just asking yourself, you know, if I let fear sit in the driver's seat, is that going to keep me safer? Is that going to help me thrive? Is that going to help me grow?

Am I going to like myself more and feel better about my life if I let that fear dictate my actions over the next week, month, 12 months, five years? And you know, at the end of life, one of the biggest regrets of people at the end of their lives is that they let their fear keep them from living the lives they could have lived, that they lived too safely, that they didn't go on the adventure, that they didn't reach out to that person and maybe mend a relationship, that they didn't make a change and disrupt their lives. And they stuck with what was really safe and familiar. And so sometimes being able to putting ourselves in the shoes of the future us and asking ourselves. Am I okay if I stay on this current course that is being governed by my fear of what I

don't want to happen? And then it's why, you know, in my latest book, The Courage Gap, I started by saying focus on what you want and not on what you fear. Because if we aren't clear about what we want, fear and avoidance of what we don't want is going to call the shots. Yeah. I'm thinking back to a couple of years ago. I was kind of in the end of a marriage. And it wasn't clear. There was no black and white of what the right thing to do was. It wasn't a terrible relationship. But there was just that thing inside me that was telling me there was a lot of inner turmoil.

And we did a lot of work around it and everything. But I was really, really struggling with the decision of what to do. And so I did one of these fear inventories. And when I was reading through it with somebody who's kind of a mentor of mine, for every fear, we would try to essentially peel back the onion, right? And it was all the fears of where will I go? What will I do? What if I don't meet somebody? What if I'm alone for the rest of my life? Exactly. All of these things that we would all have, I think, in that situation. But all of them came down to me potentially feeling discomfort. And it was so eye-opening for me to see that. And this person said to me, you know, Ariel, part of being a big girl is learning how to deal with discomfort. And I've talked about this before on this podcast. And I was like, excuse me. But I appreciate it. I need somebody to just give it to me straight like that. And I was like, you know what? She's right. So what is at the root, if you can even say, of so many of these fears?

Is it the potential to be uncomfortable where we're so conditioned to stay in our safe zone, right? You know, you talked about being kicked out of the tribe, this fear that we've had in us for tens of thousands of years. Are there similar roots to all of these fears that manifest in a lot of different. I think one of the core ones, and you just absolutely hit it, headed on the head, is that fear of not belonging, fear of disconnection. We long to belong. We're wired for belonging. And if you trace this back to 10,000 years ago, if we weren't part of a pack, I mean, we were exposed. And so that still exists. We all want to belong. So that fear, like when it comes to ending a relationship, planned up alone forever. And I can't tell you how many times over the years,

I've counseled people on relationships. And it was often fear that led them to get into and stay in a relationship that wasn't a relationship was serving them, worthy of them. They settled. They sold out. They tolerated things. They played small. And I think any great relationship has to be built on a willingness to be vulnerable.

And we have to always be willing to say, this isn't working for me. and willing to walk away, that our need to be in that relationship isn't greater than our need to be true to ourselves. And I've seen that play out because you brought that up. So I think a fear of disconnection, a fear of loss, I mean, we just want to avoid loss. You know, often we talk about a fear of failure, but is it the failure itself or is it how we're going to feel about ourselves if we fail? I'm not good enough.

a fear of not being lovable and loved. And I think at a deep, deep root there is this deep thing. You know, Brunay Brown talks about kind of shame at a primal level. So I think often there's this fear of unworthiness that if you pull a lot back and recognizing whether or not it's rational or not is beside the point that it's just there. And if you didn't care what anyone thought of you, not because you don't care about people, but because you care more about living your life authentically and living your truth, than you care about being included in belonging and everyone liking you, like, what would you do?

If you cared more about speaking and saying what was really true for you than taking care of other people's feelings and maybe causing disappointment. I mean, why do we always say yes to things when we don't really want to do them? Because we care more about keeping other people happy than we care about honoring what's really calling to us. and how we really want to spend our time. So I think absolutely there is different sort of ways that things that we fear are losing, fear of losing face, fear of losing money, fear of losing job, fear of losing status. But I think at the end of the day, so much of it comes down to our relationship with ourselves and loving ourselves in all of our fellibility and in all of our faults and in all of our floors

because we all have them. And I think when we can make peace with that in ourselves and go, what is right, what's true for me, it is incredibly liberating. Because when you give yourself permission to feel anything, it actually liberates you for everything. And the person who said to you, you know, like, you've got to get uncomfortable. Like, none of us like being uncomfortable. We're wired to avoid it. Comfort zone's got a name for a reason. But the more comfortable we can become with being uncomfortable, It expands our freedom to do anything. Like, oh, what is it I really want to do?

Because the things we most want to do with our lives and who we most want to be in our lives and who we have the potential to become is always going to require shedding some of the familiarity of who we've been before and stepping forward into places and situations that can be uncomfortable. And I know that myself, having lived around the world and having done a lot of things that are really uncomfortable. I've just been uncomfortable a lot of my head on life. Yeah, that's how I feel too. I feel like I'm uncomfortable every day. I do something uncomfortable every day. Yeah, but, you know, but literally more power to you because I think of people who aren't that uncomfortable, I mean,

comfort doesn't stay comfortable forever. Yeah. And people who live really comfortable lives, I mean, I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. I never wish for someone to live a wholly comfortable life. Like that is a life that is way smaller than the life they could be living. And I just think that's the biggest tragedy of all is to get to the end of our lives and not live the life that you could have lived because life was comfortable. And I think, you know, I'm obviously grew up in Australia and in US, you know, many people have the ability to afford a really comfortable life. We have comforts today that we, that are so affordable that our ancestors couldn't have imagined. And so there's almost a tyranny of this comfortable existence. We have to actively

choose to leave what's all really comfortable because we cannot grow and we cannot flourish. And there's so much science that shows that we thrive the most, not when we've achieved a goal. We thrive the most when we're pursuing a meaningful goal or aspiration, which requires us to exert ourselves. Yeah, I think everybody listening and myself included can look back through our lives and see how sometimes the most challenging things that we've gone through or done or accomplished are the most fulfilling things. And I think back to when things were very easy, very comfortable. And there was no growth there. I mean, it's nice to have those little moments throughout our lives. You talked about something in your podcast and you've talked about it a little bit today, but it's this exercise that people can do.

And it can really help to kind of guide where we can all go throughout the year. And that was, to write down that it's December 31st, right? Maybe you can share this exercise that people listening can do. I thought it was so easy. It's such an easy, actionable thing. Yeah. I think it's a really powerful exercise at the start of the year. But you can shift the time frame.

It could be that it's, you know, my 80th birthday as well, right? And so, but yeah, just imagine it's December 31st. Or maybe you could choose like your next birthday, you know, depending on the timeline. and just say, okay, and write down in present tense, it is December 31st, or this is my 40th birthday, and I am, and then write down your highest, holiest, wildest, most wondrous vision for how you would be feeling and what your life would be looking like. What have you done that you feel? I have done this.

I feel so great about myself. I've overcome this. This is how I showed up for this situation. and write it down in a way that it is present tense, it's positively framed, and you're connecting with the emotions that you want to feel at that future point in time. And this actually activates what's called our behavioral activation system, like in terms of what's a positive future state that's really inspiring to you that activates those positive emotions, that makes you go, oh, wouldn't it be so cool to feel that?

In January, last year I did this exercise, and I decided that I wanted to run a marathon. And I'd never been a runner. I grew up with, my dad used to call me Bumblefoot, two left feet. He used to say, he never read a parenting book. We know that parents should not do that, but I internalized that through my teens. And I decided I was a little, feeling a little disempowered at the time. And I remember thinking to myself, if I was really living powerfully, like, what would I do? I'm like, I would pick myself a goal that's really hard.

and that is that I'm going to have to stretch myself. And I decided I wanted to run a marathon. I wanted to run the New York marathon because I knew I needed to have a lot of people cheering for me. I heard that that's got the biggest like cheer squad millions come out. And so I imagined how I would feel crossing that marathon, which was November the 3rd last year. That was actually the day before my birthday. And in the Australian time zone, it was my birthdays. But I just remember like connecting to that positive emotional state.

And over the course of the year, I can. reconnected to that many times as I had to put in the hard yards, like really uncomfortable yards of just stepping outside my comfort zone, literally stepping outside my comfort zone, putting in that training for that. But it's the same for anything. Imagine yourself at that future point in time, but also imagine yourself working toward it as well. Like there's a lot to be said for just knowing it's not always going to be easy to do the things you want to do. And it's okay that it's not easy because it is in that exertion that we grow and we discover that. So I think that is a really powerful exercise.

But I think it also brings home something, a really key principle here. Following from what I said earlier, if we're not clear about what we want, then our decisions will be governed by avoiding what we don't want. So we're going to always be operating from a reactive place, taking the path of least resistance and maximum comfort, control, and certainty. And so having a vision of what you want and stepping into the shoes of your future self, consulting your future self, that wise are you, and it could be a year from now, and it could be when you're 80 years old and you're looking back on the life that was and you're going, what does my 80-year-old self want to say to my 35-year-old self? But it also helps to overcome our fear, which is always going to be there, of avoiding what we don't want. And so our commitment to a future positive outcome has to exceed our fear of a negative outcome.

And if we're not really anchored in that, you know, what is that North Star? What is my highest intention for this relationship for my life, for my career? Like, what is the thing that really lights me up and ignites a passion and purpose and a fire in my belly? like that exceeds my fear of, I'm not good enough. And what if people, you know, I expose myself as inadequate and nobody likes me and I, this venture is a massive flop. So that's a really important thing. That's like core principle that we have to apply. And that exercise helps us do that. If you are running a business, you know that every time you miss a call, you are basically leaving money on the table. So when every customer conversation matters, you need a phone system that keeps up

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Open phone, no missed calls, no missed customers. When it comes to taking care of my skin, especially in my late 30s, topical skincare is just not enough. I have to be doing all of the things. And one of those things that I am doing now is ingestable skincare. And with that, I mean taking rituals hyacera. So this is a once daily capsule. It's designed to promote skin support from within. So you put your skincare where your mouth is. It's such a simple thing to integrate. It's clinically backed skin supporting ingredients really help to fit into your regimen and just make your skin glow from within. So it helps to promote full body hydration with two of the best clinically studied ingredients shown to help minimize wrinkles and hydrate skin. So it has a clinically

studied hyluronic acid with a lower molecular weight and it has a sustainably harvested and clinically studied plant oil extract. And it also has seramides. So these are complex lipids that help make up the skin's outer layer and help support the skin barrier by helping to prevent excess moisture loss. Hyleronic acid is found in the body and supports skin hydration, and hyacera is shown to support hydrated skin after 90 days of daily use. So think minimized wrinkles and fine lines, hydrated skin that glows, smooth skin, full body hydration, all things that we all want, especially as we age. So I've noticed the biggest difference, especially in that time before my period, TMI, but let's be real here, where I feel like no matter what I do topically, my skin just

gets really, really dry and loses a lot of volume. And since I've been taking Hyacera, I've noticed that that is not happening. So I just really feel that my body is retaining a lot more moisture than it normally does. So start a ritual that's backed by science without the BS, which we love. Ritual is offering 25% off your purse month at ritual.com slash blonde. That's ritual.com slash blonde for 25% off. As you guys know, I am in my no Botox era and I try all of the things between skincare and things like taping, cupping, guasha, but I have to say that the thing that I think makes the most difference here is red light. I am obsessed with red light. It is a complete non-negotiable in my routine. It really helps with wrinkles and fine lines. It also helps with old acne marks and it just really makes my skin even

glowy and plump. So the red light mask that I love using is from Bon Charge and I will tell you why. First of all, I think that they have the best interface of any mask out there. So you can adjust the intensity. You can adjust the time. And you can also switch between near infrared and red. So near infrared really helps to get that deeper layer. It helps to boost collagen and elastin production. And then the red really helps with that more superficial skin, fine lines, pigmentation, skin tone, all of that.

Aside from its efficacy and the interface, I also love that bond charge removed circadian and sleep disrupting blue and green light from their red light masks. So other brands keep these light frequencies in their masks, which can disrupt your sleep and circadian clocks. We already have enough of that from our phones that we're on all day. We don't need that when we are trying to relax. It also has zero EMF radiation as a sensitive girly. I am really sensitive to EMF.

So this is huge. It has zero flicker. And it also has a one-year warranty. So right now you guys can get 15% off when you go to bondcharge.com and use the code blonde. that's B-O-N-C-H-A-R-G-E.com, code blonde to save 15%. Are there any small daily things that people can do so they identify this thing that they want to do or who they want to be and they can relate to that? And then what are kind of the micro habits or things that we can incorporate on a daily basis to reach that goal? Well, you know, I know you've spoken to many people on this podcast, including Mark Hyman, who's awesome.

And, you know, in terms of wellness, there are so many little daily rituals and practices that we can incorporate into our lives. And, you know, I always think, what is it that you need to do to bring your best self to your day every day and mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually? So, I mean, at the simplest level, it's like move your body, eat well, get sleep. I write in a journal often. I read, I call it wisdom literature, things that kind of just. speak into my soul at a soul level, like who do I want to be, reminding me that who I am is, you know, I believe that we're all spiritual beings having a physical experience as distinct from physical beings who have a spiritual experience. And I think that little things we can do

that just remind us of who we want to be. So I have a journaling practice. And not everyone, we all have different frameworks and belief systems. But for me, I have a strong belief that there is a God, there's a force that's greater than ourselves. And so I often just say, write in my journal, God, what do you want me to know today? Who do you want me to be today? What do you need me to do today? And I just let my pen flow. Like, that is a really powerful practice that I have. But I think even short of that is just taking a moment and going, you know what, how do I choose to show up for what I have today? And being really intentional in how we show up for our life. When things are going well,

and actually even more specifically when things aren't going well. And just last night, actually, I had dinner with a friend who lost her home in the Palisades. We know that there's thousands of people right now whose lives have been utterly turned upside down. There's so much outside of her control. You know, one of her kids' schools has burned down, et cetera. And I've had my own experiences, like not that experience like that. And I said to her, you know, there is so much that you have no. control over. There's so much uncertainty in your future. So you need to double down on what's

within your control. And the number one thing is how do you want to show up in a way that one day you're going to look back and you'll be proud of that person and how she showed up? And give yourself permission to have crappy days because it's a hard time. But just being intentional about how you want to show up for that and making that a practice. Putting B before do. Like who is it that I really want to be. And then if I'm being that person, well, what would that person be doing today? That person would be reaching out to people and actually encouraging the other people around me that are having a bad day. That person would be sharing my truth and where I'm struggling. That person would be maybe investing in doing something that makes me feel better about myself. And so, you know, I always say

be before do, you know, who is it that you want to be and let your doing flow from that. I love that. I love that emphasis on the things that we can control versus the things that we can't, because so many of us attached to outcomes. And I would imagine in this work, people have the experience of being like, okay, I'm going to overcome this fear. I'm going to do X, Y, and Z. And then they experience a setback. And I feel like that can be used in one of two ways, right? You can use that to fuel you even further or it can reinforce your belief that insert here. You're not good enough. You're not worthy. People don't like you. Whatever the situation is. So how can people reframe that? if they're experiencing a lot of setbacks and use that as a stepping stone rather than like another

roadblock. If you're doing anything worthwhile in your life, then it's not always going to go the way you want it to. And actually, even if you're not doing things worthwhile in your life, then things aren't always going to go the way you want. I mean, that is life. That is life. It is just life. Life is not linear and life will never conform to your plans. And sometimes we can work really, really hard at something. And we can be really brave and go, hey, I'm being brave. I'm taking risks. And this happened. And that can be really disheartening. Got it. This is part of the human condition, right? It is outside our control what occurs. You know, like, we can never control the output of our efforts. We can only ever control the input. Like how we show up, what we do, what we don't do,

what we say yes to, what we say no to, where we spend our time, how we invest our money, our resources, et cetera, how we, whether we study up to get more skill in something, et cetera. And so when things don't go the way we want them to, recognizing that this is part of life and that often it's the situations that test us the most that hold these silent invitations to teach us the most, for us to grow the most, So one, stepping back and looking at it and going, is there anything here for me to learn? What's the learning here? Don't miss the learning.

Find the treasure when life trips you up or you just trip yourself up. Don't miss that learning. And I think it's easy because sometimes it's hard to look at situations and go, man, I help contribute to that. Like maybe I didn't do my homework. Maybe I trusted people I shouldn't have trusted. Maybe I acted a little bit too impulsively and I didn't think enough about all of the different ways I needed to manage some of the risks here. Maybe I didn't trust someone and I should have trusted someone and I should have got more support with something. So don't miss the learning.

Mind the nuggets in those situations. And then maybe there was nothing you could have done. Maybe, think of 2020, a pandemic happened. You couldn't have predicted that. A fire happened. You know, your life was burnt down. you couldn't have imagined that. So, okay, there was nothing you did that contributed to it.

Okay. So how is it I choose to now respond to this as distinct from React and not be defined by it? And I've had so many experiences over the years where things haven't gone the way I've wanted them to. I mean, heck, if things had gone the way I'd wanted them to, a million people would have bought my book before it even came out, right? Like I haven't hit the success that I would have loved and I'm still just going at it because I'm like, I am not going to have my life be defined by whether or not I'm always achieving the winning outcomes I want, but by how I choose to show up in the face of it. And when we are so deliberate in how we choose to do that, then over time it propagates little

ripples and things happen. But also, you never know how life is working for you in the moment. that you think it's working against you. You think it's working against you. You think the stars and the moon are all conspiring against me. I swear to God, it's, you know, I must have been bad in a form of life. You hear people say that. I'm like, I'm just so down on my luck. What if all those things you think are ruining your path are actually just revealing your path? Yes, I'm thinking of a saying that we have in recovery or a concept, and that's the seemingly bad becoming good. And, you know, again, and this is something I talk about a lot. Like I can look back on my life, kind of what I was saying earlier, and see how

the things that I thought would be the worst possible things to ever happen were not actually the worst possible things to ever happen. And they were guiding me in a different direction. And I'm so grateful for all of it. And that's not to say that I would like to experience those again. And there are, you know, horrible, tragic things that happen. So you can't, it's not a blanket statement that it's all good, you know, and it's all redirection. But I think, yeah, there is a lesson and everything. And I think another thing that's important to point out at somebody who's dealt with us a lot, and I'm sure that you've experienced this as well, is that the things that I fear are worse in my imagination than in reality. I mean, it's like the anticipation of the thing

and the stories that I tell myself are a hundred times worse than anything that I've really experienced when I just take action. Yeah. I mean, I was at Mark Twain. It's like, you know, I've known many, many troubles in my life. Most of them never happened. Just recognizing we often suffer way more in our imagination than we ever do in reality because our brains catastrophes, all these worst case scenarios. You probably read the story in my book where my very first book was coming out. And I went to this tiny school.

I was the only kid in my grade the whole way through school. I'd never studied literature, you know. And I was always so present to my inadequacies as a writer, but I feel really convicted to write about what I write about, but I've never thought, oh, yes, my greatest gift is being a writer. And I remember in the lead up to my first book coming out, waking up, and in my mind's eye, was so vivid. It was a photo of me on the front page of the New York Times.

It was the whole front page. It was just my photo. It looked like a mugshot. It wasn't even a good photo. And it just said, world's worst author. Which, like, let's face it, if I wrote the world's worst book, the New York Times was never going to give me that front page billing. But such is our image.

imagination, right? We come up with these, you know, it'll all go to hell and, you know, I'll be the laughing stock of my whole family and I'll live on the streets and, you know, most time, we're going to intervene before it ever gets to that. So just recognizing, yeah, that's true. But I think it's so important to just step back at times and ask ourselves, is this true? And what is that I really need to be afraid of here? Like, what is it I really need to be afraid of? Because our ability to imagine how we'll feel one hour from now and one day from now, we have this temporal bias, trumps our ability to imagine how we'll feel one year from now. So when I think about, oh, I need to have a difficult conversation with Ariel about how she's, you know, been not

respecting my time properly. I'm like, oh, she's going to get really upset. I don't want to hurt her feelings. Oh, I won't say anything. And so, in said it just sits there and festeres. I get a little more resentful and resentful. And then, you know, a month from now or something, you know, I explode. And what we, what we're just really lousy at doing is recognizing the price we pay when we don't take the brave action, when we don't do what we know we need to do. Because things fester. Like, what's not working now doesn't get better. It just gets worse. And we often just discount the future. And we go, oh, hopefully it'll sort itself out.

No, delay grows increasingly expensive. You know, if you're not acting on something and you know you need to do it, it's very unlikely to just get better. It's going to just get worse. And so, you know, cold water doesn't get warmer if you jump later. Just do it because actually you're going to have a lot less stress in your life, even though it might be stressful in the moment. It's often when people talk about, there's some great research,

when people talk about having difficult conversations, they imagine how stressful it's going to be. Most of the time people say afterwards, actually it wasn't as bad as I thought. In fact, it actually went pretty well. And when people put it off, cumulatively suffer way more stress by putting it off. So just recognizing our brain's tricking us all the time to not do the things that we really need to do. That's part of the human condition too. And it's what gets in the way of us living into that potential.

And all of us have that. And something you said earlier. So I had bulimia from age 13 through to 26. And I wouldn't wish that on anyone. I mean, a lot of people have suffered from eating disorders. I'm guessing some people listening to this now, maybe suffering from some form of disordered eating, and particularly we women.

And I know for me, that came about because I just wished I was skinny and I wasn't. And, you know, let's just face it, it's hard to have a really healthy relationship with our bodies in a world that's constantly telling us what your body should look like. But I look back on the journey for me to come out the other side of that, to have healing and be broken from that really toxic cycle, that pattern of thinking and feeling and acting behavior. That binge purge cycle, I was really a captive too.

And I'm so deeply grateful because it took me on a journey of deep inner, exploration that led me onto the path that I'm on today. I don't know, maybe I'd have just stuck in a superficial job I was in, but I just remember as I came out of that, and then I had a couple of pretty traumatic events in my later 20s. And those events, ultimately, were the catalyst for my highest growth. And for me going, I'm changing paths. I don't want to stay doing the work that I'm doing. I was in corporate marketing.

I want to change. I went back to study psychology and then coaching, and I'm on this path. that I'm on now, but because of those really difficult experiences that were really quite painful. And so for those who are listening and they're thinking, oh, you know, I'm going through this difficult thing, just know that it's actually, it actually holds the seed for your greatest growth and for you to grow into a person that you could never become otherwise. Yeah, I can relate to that as well so much with the eating disorder and also with the addiction and the alcoholism and all of that.

And I think that's so helpful for people to hear because it's so hard, nearly impossible to have that perspective when you're in it. It's easier to see in hindsight, but when you're stuck in it and going through it, it feels like it just doesn't make sense. You conflate that addiction for me, that disordered eating with who I'm. was. You know, I had such deep shame. If people really knew me, they wouldn't like me. People don't know because I was pretty high functioning, so no one knew. So there was so much shame attached to it. That's why I am so passionate about openly sharing my journeys and my heartaches and hardships and all these things because it helps to destigmatize them. It's like you are not your addiction. You are not the patterns of behavior that keep you trapped in cycles. You are not your

failures. You are not your faults. You are not all the mistakes you've had. You are not any of that. Who you are is someone who is holy worthy and holy lovable as distinct from every experience you've had and everything you've ever done or failed to do. That is not who you are. And I think when we can reset our relationship with ourselves as holy worthy and holy lovable, totally independent of what we've done or failed to do, also independent of our success, You know, yeah, you won an Oscar. Okay, that's not who you are either. You know, you are not your body.

You are not your beauty. Because your beauty is going to change too. So does that mean your self-esteem goes down? So, no, who you are is distinct from all of those tangible external factors and those experiences. And when we can, I really reset our relationship with ourselves at that deepest level, I think it is profoundly liberating. Because if I am not my successes, and I'm also not my failures, then actually liberates me to pursue whatever it is that makes me feel most alive in my life and to change and step away from the things that suck me down and play me small and keep me from living into my potential and what I'm called to do, then, man, that is just so liberating.

And when we can make peace with our unfinished selves and extend grace into all those. parts of ourselves that we struggle with, it just enables us to have a wholly different experience of our own lives. It's so powerful. And I love that you included that it's not our successes either because then we get into the habit of outsourcing our self-esteem and our self-worth and all of that towards what we accomplish. So it's neither. It's neither side of the coin. It's interesting. I've worked with a lot of people, you know, that I think it's fair to describe as insecure overachievers. I think it's fair to say I've experienced that. I have to wrestle with that myself.

You know, like, you know, we all still have insecurities. I don't think they ever fully go away. And people who identify themselves with their title or with the accolades that they get. Like, that holds you captive to that. Like, you've got to keep getting more accolades. You've got to be still on the red carpet. And, you know, just you're captive to all of that. Well, that keeps you from really experiencing your true freedom as well.

So enjoy that. It's wonderful. Celebrate it. Awesome. Be grateful for it. Share that. But don't have that be your identity because we are then still a prisoner. Yeah. This is work that I'm doing in therapy right now. So what is my identity? Because I've never thought about it. And I do identify with, you know, my career and what I accomplish. And you're human. But I'm like, oh my God, I don't even know. So it's something that I'm unpacking right now. And it's, It is very empowering, though. Yeah. Well, you know, they say humility isn't thinking less of yourself. It's thinking about yourself less. And it's why I think, you know, to live lives that are really truly rewarding and it's not about us.

I mean, it starts with us. We've got to do our work. But it's not about us. It's about how do you use your beautiful gifts and your platform and your hard, one, hard come by wisdom to serve others and elevate others and help others live lives that honor their gifts. gifts and their hard-won wisdom and help them grow that wisdom. And I think the more we can get out of our own way, Mac, it's not about me. It's like, how do I use what I've got to help others? Honestly, I think that that is the most beautiful and powerful place to live from. Yeah, I think a lot

of people could probably relate to this, but it's another recovery thing. And it's that I'm not much, but I'm all I think about. That kind of sums it up, right? We have all of these insecurities and all this stuff. Yeah, most people are just thinking about themselves. Yeah, so that's a good point, right, for people who are afraid of judgment and what are people going to think. And this is feedback that I get from my audience all the time about, I want to leave my career, I want to leave my relationship. Everyone's pressuring me to have kids, but I don't want kids, but what are people going to think? And it's like, they're going to think about you for five seconds and then go back to thinking about themselves. Never let what other people think matter more than what you think.

Otherwise, to your point, you're basically handing over the power of your life. to everybody else's opinion. And who cares? Like, they think what they think. Yeah, exactly. Amazing. Well, thank you so much. Where can everybody get your book, listen to your podcast, all of that. Thank you. Well, yes, the courage gap is my latest book. And obviously, it's on Amazon. It's wherever good books are sold. My podcast is the Live Brave podcast. And yeah, it's wherever you listen to podcast, or if you're listening to this one. And I also invite people just to connect on social media. just my name or head over to my website, marguorrel.com and sign up for my newsletter.

Thank you so much. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed that episode. If you liked the episode and if you liked the show in general, please take a second to rate, review and subscribe. It goes such a long way in supporting the show. Follow the show over on Instagram at well.pod. You can also follow my personal Instagram at Ariel Lurie.

I'm always sharing great clips from the episode. and we also have full episodes on YouTube as well if you want to watch in entirety. Thanks for listening. Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.