 Hello, hello, everybody. Welcome to Tuesday tea. This is a new tea time. So if you are a regular Tuesday tea listener, this is actually two hours later. I made the change for a couple reasons. But the biggest reason was I am I was looking for a new accountability group around online marketing and the accountability group that I was a part of. We've decided to kind of take a break. But I found that I still needed some accountability around some of my efforts in online marketing. And anyways, I ended up finding a new group and they meet, of course, every Tuesday at 11 a.m. Pacific, which was the time of my Tuesday tea. So I wanted to make that switch to allow for this accountability group to come into my life and provide me with encouragement. One of the reasons that an accountability group is so important to me is around mindset, which is ironically what we're talking about today. So anyway, I had my first call with the ladies a couple hours ago, Amy, Tina and Susan, they are lovely. I am really, really excited to partner with them and just learn best practices, share best practices, share struggles, share triumphs and wins as we all grow our respective businesses. We're all growing them in a similar way, but our business and our target audiences are all so very different. So that's what I really love about these accountability groups. First and foremost is the diverse perspectives that come into the group. So looking forward to learning more about Amy and Tina and Susan in the weeks and months and maybe even years ahead. So not sure if you're watching this on Facebook, YouTube or LinkedIn live, but we are now live on LinkedIn live wherever you're watching and you feel comfortable. Just throw a quick hello in the comments or the chat. Let me know where you're watching this. I'm always curious as to where people are connecting with live video these days. So this is part of the testing of different personal branding techniques. Live video is super, super popular and now you can do it on almost any social media platform. So I'm always curious where people are consuming the live video that they take part in week after week. So this week's Tuesday tea. Oh, yes. The second reason I wanted to tell you the second reason I changed the time of Tuesday tea is because I wanted to do it in the afternoon and have it more centered around an afternoon cup of tea after you've had a busy morning for you in the East Coast, a busy day of activities. And maybe this is hopefully a relaxing way to kind of round up your day and finish off your day with a cup of tea. If you have your cup of tea with you today, I'm having s'mores chai again from David's tea. It's just one of my favorites. So, oh, Robin, hey, Robin, watching through LinkedIn Live. Thank you for telling me that, Robin, from Dallas, which I think is in the central time zone. Maybe it's a mountain time zone. But anyways, thank you for watching, Robin. We are going to get started very shortly and we're talking about mindset today. It has been, it's been a trip, right? This past year for many of us. I'm just sharing my screen. So pardon me while I just get this set up. This is the first time sharing my screen. There we go. Hopefully you can see that. Oh, my gosh, there's all kinds of buttons going on. I don't know how to, there we go. Okay, so the mindset piece has really been playing on my mind. No pun intended for a full year. When COVID hit our industry, the meetings and events and hospitality industry last spring, it sent me into a tizzy. I feel like I had such a high self-worth, strong self-confidence. I had a thriving business and I didn't find myself being depressed or negative about my life circumstances for quite a long time, probably almost throughout my entire 30s and most of my 40s. And when COVID hit, I thought, you know, I'm going to get through this just fine because I have these tools in place. You know, I'm very grateful for all the things in my life. Even during COVID, super, super fortunate and lucky to live in a place with lots of fresh air. And, you know, we have a backyard that we can kind of hang out in, especially when there's gathering restrictions. I have a family with family members that, you know, get along. So we were able to kind of hunker down through this past year without killing each other. Tons of things to be thankful for. But when my business had to change because of COVID, I was not expecting the limiting beliefs that kept on popping up in my life and they popped up regularly. And I'm not saying they popped up every week. I'm saying they popped up every day on the hour regardless of what my circumstance was. And that was actually quite alarming, to be honest. Because, again, prior to COVID, I never had what I considered to be mental health issues. It just wasn't on my radar. I wasn't moody. I wasn't sad. I wasn't depressed. And like I said, there were so many blessings in my life. But when I started to come out of that phase of having to cancel all of my programs and now actually get down to building a new business from scratch, I was excited and I was happy in the first couple of months because everything is new and everything is fun, right? If you've ever built a business before, it's exciting. It's scary, but it's exciting. But then when the shock wore off and the reality set in that starting a business from scratch and starting from the ground up isn't as easy as just waking up and saying, today I have a successful business and I'm making five, six figures, you know? Fear and depression set in for what I feel is like the first time in my life. I had more bad days than good days and a ton of really confusing days where I questioned the decisions I was making. Well, everything about how I wanted to take this business forward. If you've kind of been with me through the past year, I've even changed my target audience a couple of times. So these are small tweaks. Don't get me wrong. You may not have even noticed, but I changed my target audience twice because I kept questioning who it is that I really wanted to serve through my business. And the sad and depressing part was my business wasn't growing as fast as I wanted to grow. And as a perpetual goal setter, that was hard, right? So I set goals for myself every quarter and wasn't meeting my goals, my financial goals, my productivity goals. Um, geez, that was tough for me. And so I wanted to do this video during mental health month, which may is mental health month. And there are so many incredible resources out there. And today's live isn't so much of a resource as it is. Some things that I have noticed to be my triggers in case you're finding yourself in a similar situation, especially if you've had, if you've lost your business over COVID and had to build another one or you're in the hospitality industry and you've lost what you're passionate about. Um, if these triggers resonate with you or if some of the coping strategies that I'm going to share at the end of the video or the end of the tea resonate with you. That's kind of why I wanted to do Tuesday's tea today is, is to share some of my triggers and of course find ways that we can work ourselves out of these limiting beliefs. Um, so first off, what is the limiting belief? Well, a limiting belief obviously is simply something that you believe about yourself, which kind of sort of just is not true. It's, it's, you are putting boundaries and parameters around your worth, your value, your intelligence, your contributions, you're limiting what it is that you, how you can serve your people and how you can provide value in the marketplace. And my limiting beliefs really came from three things. My, the first and foremost for me was around goal setting. And if I did not meet my goals, I was a complete failure. That's the limiting belief I told myself is if I don't meet my goals, I am a complete failure. Um, as a perpetual goal setter, you know, I, you call, call high achiever type A, whatever you want to call people similar to me that have very specific goals that they want to accomplish during a day or a week. If they don't meet those goals, it can be devastating. And that's what it definitely was for me. So that was something that really triggered some pretty sad and depressing times for me. Um, but the other one that really started to kick in as I started learning more about my new space was comparisonitis. There's probably a technical word for it, but this is where you compare yourself, your journey with other people's journeys. Um, and for me, a lot of that comparisonitis obviously took place on social media where I'm looking at people who are doing LinkedIn better than me. Um, that one was tough, right? That one was really tough to see how much I still have to learn about a platform that I spend hours on every single day. Um, but then also looking at the other platforms, there's people who are doing live video obviously a lot better than I do. Um, that's still a work in progress. Um, Instagram, Facebook, you can take any of these social media platforms. There's always someone doing it better than me. Problem is there's someone, there's always going to be someone doing it better than everyone. Um, there, there is no, there's only a handful of people in the world that are the best at a platform and it's proven by analytics or KPIs, you know, the absolute best in the world. I think of YouTube and the most popular YouTube video is I think baby shark. Well, all other videos on YouTube are not as popular as baby shark. So no matter how good or how bad you are, there's someone who's going to be better and probably someone who hasn't met their potential up to where you're performing as well. So, but I get wrapped up in this, right? Because I, I feel like there's got to be something. There's got to be one thing at least, right? That I can stake my claim that, um, I have a handle on better than others in the market. Um, but there isn't, um, you know, spoiler alert, there wasn't anything, um, that, so that sent me down, uh, into some mental health, um, spirals again, where it was just struggle to kind of fight my way back into positive mindset. And then of course there's imposter syndrome. And we've talked about imposter syndrome on Tuesday tea before. My friend Heather Reed joined me not too long ago and we talked about how imposter syndrome, um, manifests in our lives. Um, and when you're building a new business, especially after 14 years of having a previous business, um, imposter syndrome is real. You know, um, 14 years of experience. And now I literally have zero years experience in my new business. So imposter syndrome is very, very real, uh, very prevalent and it impacts me every single day. Um, but all of our, we all have different triggers and perhaps your triggers look different than mine. Um, but those are the three that really impact, um, how it is I view the world and how it is I view my business, uh, each and every day. Uh, however, what I'm trying to do now in May is to create a bit of a strategy, right? So now type A individual. Um, and if you're type A, you can, you can relate. Um, we're going to treat this like a project. We're going to, we're going to dissect this bad boy, uh, and figure out how we can compartmentalize mental health, which I know that you cannot do. Um, but that was one of the strategies that I needed to, um, channel to kind of work my way through some of these, um, mental health symptoms that were preventing me from achieving all I could in a day and maybe even achieving my full potential in the weeks and months and years to come. Um, so some of these are kind of fun. Some of these are downright serious, but what I started to do, um, first and foremost in the morning was have a music playlist with, um, some music that had some motivating lyrics. And, uh, in fact, I did a LinkedIn post today about, um, my music playlist and, uh, a couple of people have given me some suggestions on different songs. Um, thank you, Matthew, by the way, um, for your song suggestion. Um, Matthew Delori messaged me through Instagram with one by Dua Lipa. Um, I forget though. Doesn't matter. Um, anyways, so I have a music playlist now that kind of kicks off my day, um, each and every morning. It's playing in the background as I get to work. Um, and one of the things when I'm getting to work is I stay off of my social media and I stay out of my inbox, um, right through to mid or some days, even late morning. Um, today I haven't looked at my email once, which probably should start doing that, but, but at the same time I'm feeling better about my day. I think one of the things that was, uh, causing my mental health to spiral is every time I opened up my email box, um, it was about another event cancellation, uh, and no one is happy to see event cancellation. So I'm now just putting off the email until mid day because I need to get some high value work done. And that's the other thing that I'm doing is I'm doing my high value work. First thing in the morning, some mornings that is six o'clock in the morning and I am doing high value work. This is work on my new business. This is, uh, resources and services that I can give, uh, to my clients and customers. Um, I do those things now first thing in the morning for sometimes upwards of three hours of work before I touch anything else. Um, that's actually helping me with that goal setting piece, um, although some weeks get derailed. Uh, and then after that high value work, I usually just go for a walk or a run walk with my dog Farley, who's actually not here today. Sorry, he couldn't say hi. Um, so Farley and I will go for a walk or a run and, um, kind of work out the last, you know, two or three hours of work before I get on with my day. I've also started an encouragement file. Uh, these are digital files. Um, and I've started these encouragement files in a few places. I've started a Google spreadsheet with, um, just simply names of people that I know support me in my work. Um, it reminds me to reach out to them every now and again to thank them, um, for supporting me in my work. Um, but it's a good reminder for those days when I have comparisonitis and I think no one is learning a thing from me and I have nothing to share with my community. Um, I do have a community. It's not massive, but it's growing. Um, and I do have some, um, amazing supporters. And so now I make a note to think about them more often and recognize how they have helped me over the past year and through the months and years to come. I've also started flagging emails that come in with those notes of encouragement as well. Um, and those, and those come every now and again, especially if I send out a newsletter that resonates with someone in that place at that time and I was able to give them a tool that they could, um, use so they'll send me a message. And so I'm starting to keep those. I'm going to revisit those emails, um, you know, in the weeks and months to come when, um, when I need that pick me up again. And finally, I've also started another Google spreadsheet that catalogs all the interesting projects that I've started working on. Um, so for example, I was actually on a radio show last week. Who knew that radio shows were still a thing, but they are. Uh, so I was on a radio show last week talking about personal branding. So cool. I'm going to remember that I need to remember that when I'm having days where I feel like no one's going to listen to me about personal branding. Well, someone listened to the radio show. So there's at least one person that may have found value in the tips I shared around branding. So the encouragement file idea is, uh, so far working. I've just started this file. Uh, still have to fill in some blanks and find some emails and et cetera. So on, but this is my new mindset toolbox for May and some of the tools I may decide not to use. Uh, but first now these tools that I'm using are really helping me with my mindset. Oh gosh. And I forgot the last one is, um, affirmations and gratitude. And I was listening to Rachel Sheeran's podcast. Actually, this episode was from quite a few weeks ago, but just got a chance to listen to it now about gratitude. Uh, so Rachel Sheeran, her podcast is called F this S F this S with Rachel Sheeran. Anyway, she's fantastic. Love her podcast. And she's talking about, um, having gratitude, regardless of any circumstance that we have, um, we, we still have the opportunity to be grateful. And she talked about gratitude, um, in asking or declaring four things each morning. I am. So I am something I am intelligent. I am positive. I am, um, worthy. Those kinds of things. Um, uh, follow it up by I have. So I have a supportive family. I have a roof over my head. Um, I have the ability to start a new business. Um, those kinds of statements followed by, um, I won't. So today I won't say anything negative about myself. Um, or I won't drown in social media comparison. It is. Um, or I won't waste all of my time on in my email box today because I have other things to do. Followed by I will, um, you know, I will call my friends to say thank you for their support. I will work on my digital course that's coming out in June. Um, I will say thank you to, um, my friends and my mentors. So I am, I have, I won't, and I will that's from Rachel Shearan's at this podcast. So I recommend that you check out her podcast. Um, so these are all in my mindset toolbox now and we will see, um, how far, uh, this lasts or, or if this is going to go through a series of tests and trials. Um, into, into June and the summer month, summer, obviously being a little bit harder. Um, one of the affirmations that I think about, and it makes me giggle. Sorry, I'm giggling because it's one of those. So I'm almost 50 years old, grew up with SNL in the 80s and I don't know if you remember a character by the name of Stuart Smalley. Um, and that was his thing. He was a coach, right? And but he always gave himself this affirmation before providing coaching advice and his affirmation was I'm good enough. I'm smart enough and dog on it. People like me and you know, watching SNL, we used to always laugh when he did that. But wow, those are powerful words. And so, um, I'm good enough. I'm smart enough and dog on it. People like me and those are words that are, I need to repeat and I need to believe more often as I continue on my mental health journey. Um, I want to give a public shout out to Stephanie Lynch, who has encouraged me to do more content around mental health. Um, you know, that's obviously a tough thing to talk about for any person. Certainly a tough thing to talk about for someone who considers themselves a high achiever like me and should have it all together, right? That's what high achievers and Taipei personalities do is everything is, is organized and all together. But, uh, Stephanie has encouraged me to be a bit more, um, authentic and vulnerable, especially with the things that I've struggled with over the past year. So I want to thank her for that. Um, thank you for joining me for Tuesday tea today. Hope you had a wonderful cup of tea while you enjoyed my foray into slide shows. Um, you know what? I do not have the best video series out there. I can tell you lots of people who have, but each week I hope to get a little bit better and it's with your feedback and your suggestions that I'm able to do so. So please, um, send me your DMs if you feel comfortable comment on this video. Um, and let me know what kind of content that you're anxious to see here on Tuesday tea. Uh, and next week we have a special guest on Tuesday tea Courtney Stanley from Courtney on stage is going to join us. So pretty excited to be interviewing such a, um, industry rock star in Courtney Stanley. And so we'll be doing that next Tuesday, May 18th at 1 p.m. Pacific 4 p.m. Eastern here on Facebook Live, LinkedIn Live and YouTube. Have a great day everyone. Bye for now.