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The Best Bits

In this episode of the 5 a.m. Miracle, host Jeff Sanders talks with Megan Hyatt Miller, president and CEO of Full Focus, about her book "Mind Your Mindset: The Science That Shows Success Starts With Your Thinking." The central premise is that ideas have transformative power and that you become what you think about, because your results flow from your actions, and your actions flow from your thoughts. Megan explains that the brain functions as a narrator, constantly interpreting the facts of life and creating stories about them. This narrator is wired to keep us safe, so its first interpretation is often negative and disempowering, even though we mistake those stories for objective truth. She illustrates this with her own long-held fear of public speaking, which began in high school and led her to avoid presentations, podcasts, and other opportunities, making her life smaller and smaller. She describes how she eventually confronted the fear by writing a new, believable story on paper and repeating it daily, which helped her deliver a successful keynote to 800 people. The book offers a three-step process: identify your narrator, interrogate the story by separating facts from interpretation, and imagine a better story. Megan notes that new stories must feel believable and that others, such as coaches or colleagues, can help reveal blind spots. She encourages listeners to rediscover their agency, because changing your story can change your life.

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Speaker 1Ideas have transformative power. You become what you think about. Your thoughts, ideas, and inputs are everything. What you put in is what comes out. This is the 5 a.m. Miracle, episode number 475. Success starts with your thinking. Good morning and welcome to the 5 a.m. Miracle. I am Jeff Sanders and this is the podcast dedicated to dominating your day before breakfast. My goal is to help you bounce out of bed with enthusiasm, create powerful lifelong habits, and tackle your grandest goals with extraordinary energy. My guest today is the president and CEO at Full Focus and the co-host of the popular business podcast, Business Accelerator. During our conversation this week, Megan and I discussed her new book, Mind Your Mindset. The science that shows success starts with your thinking. Let's dig in. All right, welcome back to the 5 a.m. Miracle studios. And I'm here today with Megan Hyatt Miller, ready to dig into her new book. So, Megan, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2Thanks so much for having me, Jeff. I can't wait to talk today.
Speaker 1You were actually on this podcast about 18 months ago, and I feel like a lot has happened in the world in the last few years. And so just before we get to that, I just want to say thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me, Jeff. I do want to ask, what's been happening with you and your business and your world in the last year and a half or so?
Speaker 2Wow. Well, you know, in our business, probably like so many others, we have been kind of wrapping our heads around and leaning into a post-COVID world. We're more remote permanently than we were previously. We're more flexible than we were previously. And, you know, this has always been an area that we've been focused on. But increasingly, our employees care more. And, you know, as we've been focusing on, you know, this has always been an area that we've been focused on. And more about, as well as our clients, work-life balance, you know, and really making sure that work works for our team and that we're leading our clients to do the same with their teams. Because people, I think, just have a renewed awareness about how important it is to do what we call a full-focus, win at work, and succeed at life.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's definitely a big challenge for most of us. Work-life balance is always a challenge. But the last few years have been even more intense. Let's get to the book. Speaking of actually work-life balance, I think the book actually fits well with that concept. Mind your mindset. This is actually a topic that I've discussed previously on my podcast. I did an episode about how we become what we think about, which I extracted from, I think it was Earl Nightingale years ago. Old school, personal development guy. And these ideas that, you know, when we think about things, we change. And I'm curious from this perspective of what the book covers. How do our thoughts, you create our realities?
Speaker 2Well, it's so interesting because I bet a lot of your listeners feel the same way that probably you and I do, which is, you know, we're so geared, especially in Western culture, toward action. You know, we have this action bias. And when there's something that's not going the way that we would like, you know, we're not getting the results in our personal life, our professional life that we want. We just think we need to work harder or we need to do something different or whatever. And all of that, in a way, is true. But the reality is, is that our results are certainly the consequence of our actions. But our actions are the consequence of our thoughts. And if you really are somebody who cares about performance and about reaching your potential, but maybe there's some area of your life, and you can get into this later. But, you know, as I experienced in my own life with a really debilitating fear of public speaking, the issue may not be with your actions as much as your thinking that's driving those actions. And. You know, we talk about in this book, Mind Your Mindset, about how we have this character kind of in our mind. It's really our brain that's doing this for us, but that acts as a narrator and makes sense of what we experience, the sort of facts of our life, which are different from the story we're telling ourselves about it. And that narrator's job is all about keeping us safe and helping us avoid danger. But sometimes the stories that it feeds us are at odds with what we're trying to accomplish. And that's. That's where the problems come in.
Speaker 1Yeah, I wanted to get to that concept of the narrator, because I feel as though that's a major part of the book. And I know that when I think about the stories I know I tell myself about my life, the point you just made, that what we're thinking about ourselves and our realities don't line up that well. And we, in that sense, cause our own problems because we're thinking about life in a way that doesn't align. So let's dig into more of this concept of the narrator. What exactly is it and how does that work?
Speaker 2Yeah, well, so the first thing to understand is that there's a difference between what happens to us and what we say about what happens. And for most of us, this is not an area of self-awareness. I mean, it's not something that most of our parents taught us. Usually what we say about what happens feels very true. And in fact, many people would just say, oh, yeah, that that's what happened. That's the facts. In reality, the facts are usually pretty boring. They're things that might show up like in a police. Report or some other, you know, just really dry, boring report. You know, the person crossed the street at six fifty nine p.m. And then he changed to the other side of the street before walking under such and such a lamppost. You know, like it's just generally not very exciting. But then what we layer over the top of that, and this is the work of the narrator, is trying to make sense of those events. What does it mean that he crossed the street? Well, the story could be, you know, he was getting ready to, you know, do a cross. It could be a crime of some kind or he was running from someone or and that's where the story part comes in. And again, the narrator's job, if you look at kind of the brain science part, it's really all about keeping us safe. It's all about looking at our past experiences, forecasting what could happen in the future and trying to help us avoid what it could what it perceives as being dangerous in some way. The problem is, is sometimes the stories that it tells. Are actually really disempowering. And that's where the trouble comes in. And until we develop this self-awareness, we assume that the stories that are being fed to us by our brain are just the truth. And in reality, they're really just about keeping us safe. And there are subjective interpretation of the facts.
Speaker 1Do you think that most people's brains are leaning towards this idea of maybe like a negative bent on these stories? Because I feel as though my like you mentioned this idea of. Safety in our brains are trying to keep us safe. And that's I think the way that plays out, at least in my own brain, tends to be more towards the negative of, oh, I'm worried about what could happen and fear kicks in. And like, what would I do if is that the norm for most people?
Speaker 2It is. And that's a really important point that you bring up, Jeff, because we can once we start to become aware of these stories that our narrator is telling us. And this is running in the background of our mind like 24 seven. We kind of feel badly about ourselves. Like, am I doing something wrong or am I just. A negative person? No, you're not. You're not doing anything wrong and you're not just a negative person. Your brain just kind of evolved with the sole purpose of keeping you safe and making sure you have what you need in terms of your basic needs. And, you know, when we think about that, it helps us to kind of calibrate our expectations that the first story that's going to pop into your mind as an interpretation of whatever it is you just experienced, big or small, usually is going to be negative. The great thing is, and the reason why. We are so excited about this book is that that's not where the story has to end. That's just your brain's first attempt. You can actually cut new neural pathways in your brain by going through a three step process that we talk about in mind mindset, which we can get into if you'd like to.
Speaker 3We'll be right back.
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Speaker 1yeah certainly before we get there though I do want to bring up this idea of fear what you kind of allude to earlier with with public speaking because it is part of the book where you discuss this and kind of open up to the fact that you know you have this fear of you know even from a podcast interview or being on stage like any of these opportunities to to speak to people you know I have a background in theater and I've done a lot of performance and so I don't have as much of it, but I still have some of it. I still know like the same butterfly feelings, right? The same possible issues. What could happen if, talk to us about kind of how that fear has played out for you and how maybe you've changed your own internal narrative about that.
Speaker 2Yeah. Well, this really, this story really became the inspiration for this book from my perspective. And it all really began in high school for me. I had a friend who was giving a presentation in front of the class and became overwhelmed with anxiety and ran out of the classroom, kind of hysterical. And I found her in the bathroom, bawling her eyes out, humiliated. And immediately the narrator in my head said, I never want to be humiliated like that or lose control of my body. And so speaking is dangerous. And I formed this belief. I didn't even realize that it happened, you know, which is true for most of us. I had no idea. And so it got to the point where, you know, if I were in, you know, a small group of people and we were reading something aloud together, I couldn't even read a passage in a book without feeling utter panic. And I don't know that I could adequately describe how debilitating this came, became for me, you know, as I was progressing professionally, I would say no to all kinds of opportunities. You know, I need to do a presentation to the board and I would tag somebody else to do it. Oh, I could write a book. I don't want to do that because speaking would be involved. And so I just, I kept saying no to things. My life got smaller and smaller. And in my, my current role, um, in the company that my dad and I own together, full focus, I, uh, eventually became the COO of this company. And then later the CEO. And as I became the COO, it became more necessary for me to be in front of people, uh, whether that's like you said, podcast interviews or on stage doing Q and A's that kind of thing. And I just dreaded the day when eventually I was going to have to do a keynote by myself, but nobody knew that I had this fear. Well, eventually, our team came to me and said, Hey, we want to do this live event and we want you to do a keynote. And remember, they don't know anything about this fear. They just know I haven't done it before, but that, you know, I don't think anybody had given it much thought. And I took a big, deep breath and reluctantly said yes. And then about a week later, found myself at a gate in American airlines in Chicago on a business trip. And I was reaching out to a friend of mine who was a speaking coach, just in tears of, I have to confront this fear. I have to do this, or I basically have to walk away from my career. I know this is one of the things that I'm going to do. Those fork in the road moments. And that began the journey of ultimately interrogating the story that I had unconsciously told myself about speaking is dangerous. It will end in humiliation. I'll lose control of my body. And for the next six weeks, I mean, I had anxiety coach, speaking coach, doctor, my own internal content team, all helping me with this. And I literally rewrote the story. I wrote a narrative. It was like a page and a half long on yellow legal pad. Uh, you know, in, in my own handwriting of what I wanted to feel like, what, what story I actually wanted to tell on stage, because I knew that if I didn't face this fear, my life was just going to get smaller and smaller. And so that, that six weeks was excruciating, but eventually I stepped on the stage in front of 800 people. Can you imagine being in front of 800 people for your very first keynote? And, uh, it went fabulously. It was actually fun. I had the normal butterflies, which I didn't even realize that's normal. Like it doesn't mean anything bad's about to happen, but I had those normal butterflies right before I stepped on stage. And then I felt calm and it was enjoyable and it was effective. And I've done many of those since then. And, uh, you know, had no problems. So I think that that's kind of an extreme example, but that's what happens when we have these stories that we're not aware of. They can end up actually controlling our lives until the awareness comes and we can interrogate them and come up with something better.
Speaker 1So you mentioned that you actually wrote out a new story on paper. Can you walk us through kind of what kind of a story are you writing here? Is this more like the future version of me will do this or like, I am a person am different now because, or how did this story play?
Speaker 2Well, in this particular case, I really wrote, I really described in the present tense, how I wanted to experience the speaking engagement, how I wanted to connect with the audience, how I wanted to feel in my body, how I wanted to feel when it was done, you know, and I tried to use very emotive physical language so that, um, I could really embody this. And to be honest with you, it felt kind of silly at first, you know, it felt like about the furthest thing from the truth. And at the same time, I knew that the old story I was telling myself was not going to result in an outcome of a successful, confident presentation. I mean, it was just, there was two dissonant. There was no way those two things could coexist. And so I just, every day I read this out loud and described what it would be like, what it would feel like, to have that accomplishment, what it would feel like to walk on stage and look in the eyes of the people I was presenting to and know that the material that I was sharing with them mattered, you know, that it could potentially even change the course of their life in some way or another. And that, um, you know, I, I had a message. I deserve to be heard. I deserve to take up space on the stage, those kinds of things. Uh, I just repeated over and over and you know what, it played out almost exactly like the story. That I wrote once I finally got up there on the stage.
Speaker 1This sounds similar to, I guess, doing like an affirmation. How does this compare to something like a personal mantra you might have to say something? I know from my personal experience, when I've done things like affirmations, I tend to lean towards using language that feels like I'm lying to myself. Like I'm saying, I'm telling a story that isn't true yet. And my brain just kind of goes, no, that's, that's not the case. Like, how do we reconcile those kinds of differences
Speaker 2there? I think that's a really good point because I've had the same experience. I've had the same experience. And I think that there's a range of storytelling that you can do, realizing that all interpretations of events are somewhat subjective. And then you can kind of get outside of that range where your brain just goes, absolutely not, you know? And sometimes I think we have to kind of work our way up to maybe that, that version of ourselves. Like what I didn't say is I'm the best public speaker in the entire world. No one has ever been more confident than me. You know, I think that's kind of what you're talking about. And I think that's kind of what you're talking about. Which would have felt totally false. I mean, I'm a person who during that six week period, I had at least one complete panic attack, like actual panic attack as I led, as I, as I went home from the rehearsal the day before the speech, you know, so that would not have resonated as true. I think what you want to do is come up with a believable version of the story that pushes you. I mean, it should push you. Um, but it shouldn't be so outlandish that it just feels, um, almost like magical thinking. That's not what I'm talking about. What I am talking about is you have agency to tell a story that's going to predispose your brain to the kind of solutions and actions that are going to lead you to the results you want in your life. And that's what we're going for here.
Speaker 1So with the kind of messaging you want to send to yourself, I mean, you mentioned this idea of action. And I know that like, as a, this podcast is focused on like a productive, you know, view of life, like really trying to ask those questions of, you know, what can I do about, you know, problem X is, is that kind of thinking what tends to work best in terms of, you know, here's a thing I can do about this problem. Here's a path that can go down. Cause I know from experience when I feel, let's say fear or negative emotion, I can get myself really, you know, spiral downward into that thought process. And the only thing that's really pulled me out of it has been doing something physically about it, like getting up and moving my body. Is that kind of action, you know, the right path forward here?
Speaker 2Well, certainly engaging your physical body can be very powerful for your brain, especially with regard to anxiety or fear. The research is really clear on that. And I'm a big believer in that myself, where I think the thinking comes in is, you know, if there's an area of your life, like maybe you've been trying to install a habit of daily exercise and you, you know, every year you set this as a new year's resolution or a goal, and you just can't make progress, or you want to get up earlier in the morning and have a morning ritual, or something like that. And you just struggle with that. And you're like, I know I want to do this. Like, why can I not get a breakthrough here? No matter how many times I put this on my list, I just won't do it. That's when it can be very helpful to go further upstream instead of trying a different action, you know, a different app or a different plan or a different program. It can be helpful to go upstream and say, okay, what story am I telling myself? Because for example, if your morning ritual is that you're going to lose sleep, and you really need sleep, and that's a basic human need, there's probably not a scenario where you're ever going to take the action consistently that you need to take to get the result of being up early in the morning and having a consistent morning ritual and all the great benefits that we know come along with that, right? Instead, you're going to have to say, okay, that's what my protective brain that wants to keep me safe and out of danger. Just throwing up at the beginning, what else could I think here? And is it really is that story I started with? Is that really true? what else could I think here that might empower me? Like maybe you could focus on what you're going to gain, you know, by getting up that early. Maybe you're actually the quality of your rest because you go to bed earlier might actually be higher and you might be more rested if you got up at five or six in the morning than if you stayed up till midnight and got up at, you know, six or seven on the other side. So I think that's kind of what this looks like. This episode is brought
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Speaker 1So I want to go back to earlier when you mentioned the idea that there were these, with a narrator and these neural pathways were going to form, that you had three steps you want to mention. So I want to be sure to ask that question before I forget.
Speaker 2Yes. Well, this is a simple process that we walk you through in Mind Your Mindset. And of course, we are able to go in much more depth in the book. But the first step is to identify, to recognize your narrator. The fact that you have a narrator. I mean, this is a big idea, for a lot of us. Like I said at the beginning, most of us were not ever raised to think about our thinking. We just kind of accept what pops into our heads. So we have to develop this skill of self-awareness to recognize these stories that are in our head and the fact that they're coming from this narrator, which is really just our brain. That is the first step in this process. The second step is to interrogate. And this is when you're challenging your narrator. You're saying, well, the process of self-awareness should be really kind. This is not about self-judgment. It should be compassionate towards yourself. Because again, the stuff is just popping up. You're not doing anything wrong. This is sort of when we get a little combative with ourselves and with this narrator. And we want to start trying to shake loose the facts from the interpretation that our brain is feeding us about the facts. And once we do that, we're able to really start asking the question about, is that really true? What else could be true? Is that serving me? And so on and so forth. So interrogate is the second step. And then the last step is to imagine. And this is really where we train our narrator. This is when our agency comes in because we're not a victim of our own brain. It's trying to help us, but it doesn't know everything. We can actually get in the driver's seat and we can take charge of the narrative that's in our head. After that negative stuff pops in, we can take over and we can start to imagine what else could be true here. And this is where you really get to rediscover your agency. You get back in control and you get to start writing the stories in your life that are going to lead you to accomplish the things that align with your highest values.
Speaker 1So I really like this idea of the second part here of challenging the narrator, really asking the question, are these stories true? Because I feel as though the challenges that I've faced when I've been up and down the world, I've been up and down the world, I've been up and down the world, we're up against, we'll call it like a mental challenge, like a mental block on something that I know factually that I'm butting my head against something. I am trying to accomplish something, but my brain is stopping me. How do we, I guess, challenge ourself in a way that allows us to then have that breakthrough? Asking those questions of, is this really true? It's like a brainstorming session of how do I tap into knowing my own mental blocks in that sense?
Speaker 2One of the things that I like to do in the first step, which is to identify the narrator, is I like to just write down. This could be on a whiteboard or just a piece of paper if you're sitting at your kitchen counter. Write down all these thoughts about whatever it is that is troubling you and just get them out of your head because there's something about objectifying it that really sets us up for the next step, which is to interrogate the story. And so if you can get them on paper, now you can look at them and you can say, okay, has there ever been a time when that wasn't true? Could there ever be another explanation for that? Maybe in my own story with my public speaking fear, the idea that I would certainly be humiliated and lose control of my body. But the truth is, I actually had examples, including my high school commencement address, I was the class president, when I delivered a speech that was great. But because I had this story that I was going to be humiliated in public and lose control of my body, if I stood up to speak in front of people, I just kind of discounted that and hadn't integrated it. And I sort of forgot about it. And in reality, I had evidence in my own life that contradicted the story that my narrator was giving me. And so just to go through that process and ask, has there ever been another time when this wasn't true? What else might be true? And just try to shake those things loose so that you can get them out of your head. And I think that's really important. Now you're set up for the next step, which is to imagine and train your narrator to tell better stories. One thing I
Speaker 1know that I've experienced in that similar vein of looking for evidence in my own life is that other people tend to see that better than I can. Someone else can identify a strength that I view as a weakness. Someone else can see me better than I can. Does that play a role in the story also of figuring out how to change your narrative based upon, let's say, feedback from others?
Speaker 2I think that is such a great point and something that we talk about in Mind Your Mindset because sometimes these stories, especially the ones that get kind of lodged in us in moments of trauma or pain in some way or real fear, they can be hard to dislodge. And that's where other people can come in, you know, for sure. Therapists can be helpful for this. If you have experienced trauma, therapists, really a lot of the work that they do is about helping you. And I think that's helping you rewrite the narrative of your life, at least the really good therapist. This is where coaching can be helpful, life coaching, executive coaching, but also just the people that are every day around you, maybe your spouse, your roommate, your best friend, your co-workers. One of the things we do at our company is we've developed a culture that says it's safe to challenge the stories that we tell. Nobody's going to make you feel bad for the stories that you by default tell and this is happening automatically. It's not anything that you're doing wrong, but we also want to help each other see things that we can't see on our own. So we might say, Ooh, that, that sounds like a story that's not helping you. You know, for example, if you were to have a team who were behind on a sales goal for the month, and maybe they said something like, well, we're never going to hit our sales goal for December because after all it's a short month with the holiday and there just aren't enough days to hit, to hit the goal. Is that a fact? Or is that a story? Well, as a story, right? Because certainly there probably are examples in, in times that you've had a shorter month that you've been able to hit that goal. And so that's where somebody, now maybe the sales team couldn't see that because it feels really true. They're staring the obstacle of the calendar in the face, but somebody from another department might be able to say, huh, is it really true? Is there any other way that you could think of to get around that? Has there ever been a time when you had less time than you hope that you accomplished a big goal? Actually, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, what else could we think here? You know? And so I think that's so helpful to have other people in their perspectives because often they can just see things that we can't.
Speaker 1So if we go back for a second to your public speaking fear, there was, when you wrote down this, this process, this one speech you gave, you know, page and a half, you wrote this out. Is this the kind of process that you're going to repeat for each speech you might give? Or is there like a recurring habit, where you're going to acknowledge that there's been this fear I've had, but I have a system that I'm now like working through to make sure that I always have, you know, a plan of action to, to overcome it.
Speaker 2So this is what's interesting. I think a lot of times there is a big effort at the beginning of something like this, you know, really big fear or really big area where you feel blocked in your life. And you have to do some intensive work around the stories that you've accumulated in that area because they're, they're large. However, go through this. process of identifying interrogating and imagining on the other side of that you're not going to have to do that same lift every single time it's kind of like once you get in shape maintaining that is a lot easier than doing it from you know zero or negative zero right uh and i think that's very true in this situation as well so now when i speak first of all i still get nervous not debilitatingly nervous but what i've realized is actually and this is a story adrenaline and that little bit of anxiety that i feel make me more alert clearer in my thinking and better able to connect with the audience than i would be without it and so i've actually changed my relationship with that anxiety instead of oh gosh this is about to go downhill fast and i'm gonna lose control and be humiliated it's oh my body is just preparing for peak performance and so that's kind of a shorthand little thing that i say to myself when i start to feel those nerves come up right before i get on stage or present in some way and i know that it's okay i don't have to feel afraid of it it's i'm really saying to my brain you're safe nothing bad's about to happen you're safe this is actually exactly what we want to have happen because it delivers better results and so that's what it looks like on kind of the maintenance end of going through this process so what would
Speaker 1you like the the readers to really pull from this book they've gone through this process they're tackling some of these fears like what's the end result they're really going
Speaker 2for well i think the biggest thing is to rediscover your agency you know so often it can feel like we're just a victim of our thoughts or that what's possible for us is somehow kind of predestined and um we're just sort of a victim of it and like like there's some kind of fatalism in the world and certainly not everything is our in our control and not everything can be solved with thinking and we're well aware of that however so much of it can and you really can change your life if you change your stories and it's not that difficult and it's certainly not expensive but it is so rewarding and so empowering and i what i want people to walk away from this book knowing is that it's possible for them you don't have to stay stuck the things that are troubling you in your life are not forever they don't have to be forever if you don't want them to be and it's really possible to get breakthroughs in all areas of your life yeah i like that
Speaker 1change your life you change your story i think that that's that's nailed the head right there uh so megan where can people get a copy of this book
Speaker 2well you can get a copy of this book anywhere that uh books are sold and uh what i want to make sure that your listeners know is that we have some really special bonuses when you buy the book and all you have to do is take your receipt to uh mind your mindset book.com slash 5am mind your mindset book.com slash 5am and there you're going to get access to the audiobook so make sure you don't buy the audiobook because you're going to get that for free by either the kindle or the paper book and you're also going to get access to our self-coacher tool which is going to walk you through this process you can pull it out anytime this is a desk tool that you can just print out and have available to you all the time and you're going to get access to our course on the book where my dad and i walk you through this process as well as some exercises so it's really awesome i don't want you guys to miss out on that because um this is like over 500 worth of bonuses so make sure you take your receipt over there and check it out excellent
Speaker 1that's awesome i'll be sure to have that that link in the show notes page this week as well great megan this has been wonderful i'm super excited for this book i think it's a really great topic uh that tackles things a lot of us overlook and i'm really glad this book exists now so yeah thanks a lot for that
Speaker 2well jeff thanks so much for having me on i really appreciate this has been a fun conversation and for the action step this week of
Speaker 1course go grab your copy of mind your mindset if you agree with the idea that ideas matter you will love this book and how it can shape new and better ideas in your own mind there's a link to the book and megan's website at jeffsanders.com and of course subscribe to this podcast or follow it in apple podcast or spotify go to jeffsanders.com slash subscribe to see a lot more apps available or of course use the app you're using right now that's all i've got for you here on the 5 a.m miracle podcast this week until next time you have the power to change your life and the fun begins bright and early

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. Ideas have transformative power, and you become what you think about, because your thoughts drive your actions and results.
  2. Jeff Sanders interviews Megan Hyatt Miller about her book "Mind Your Mindset," which argues that success starts with your thinking.
  3. The brain acts as a "narrator" that interprets facts and creates stories, usually leaning negative because its primary job is to keep you safe.
  4. Megan shares her personal story of a debilitating fear of public speaking that caused her to decline opportunities and shrink her life.
  5. She overcame the fear by writing a new, believable story about the speaking engagement and repeating it daily before the event.
  6. The book presents a three-step process
  7. New stories should feel believable and push you forward rather than being outlandish affirmations that your brain rejects.
  8. Other people, such as coaches, therapists, and trusted colleagues, can help you see stories and strengths you cannot see on your own.

Summary:

In this episode of the 5 a.m. Miracle, host Jeff Sanders talks with Megan Hyatt Miller, president and CEO of Full Focus, about her book "Mind Your Mindset: The Science That Shows Success Starts With Your Thinking." The central premise is that ideas have transformative power and that you become what you think about, because your results flow from your actions, and your actions flow from your thoughts.

Megan explains that the brain functions as a narrator, constantly interpreting the facts of life and creating stories about them. This narrator is wired to keep us safe, so its first interpretation is often negative and disempowering, even though we mistake those stories for objective truth. She illustrates this with her own long-held fear of public speaking, which began in high school and led her to avoid presentations, podcasts, and other opportunities, making her life smaller and smaller. She describes how she eventually confronted the fear by writing a new, believable story on paper and repeating it daily, which helped her deliver a successful keynote to 800 people.

The book offers a three-step process: identify your narrator, interrogate the story by separating facts from interpretation, and imagine a better story. Megan notes that new stories must feel believable and that others, such as coaches or colleagues, can help reveal blind spots. She encourages listeners to rediscover their agency, because changing your story can change your life.

FAQs

The book explains that success starts with your thinking, showing how your results come from your actions, and your actions come from your thoughts.

The narrator is your brain's automatic storytelling system that interprets events to keep you safe, but its stories are often subjective and can be disempowering.

The three steps are: identify your narrator, interrogate the story, and imagine a better story to train your brain.

She wrote a new story in present tense describing a successful speaking experience, read it daily, and worked with coaches to face her fear.

It uses a believable story that pushes you, rather than an outlandish affirmation that your brain rejects as false.

When you repeatedly fail to take action despite wanting to change, such as struggling with a habit, it helps to examine the underlying story.

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