Unlock Your Mindset And Learn To Play Again

Welcome back to Embracing. I swear the interest of our event. This is literally a hard trip. Oh yeah, I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna do that. You the intro and then this, your host for today. No, not for today. I mean, I'm always the host. You can say all of it if you like. Do you want me to? Yeah, yeah. And then just add me in there. Ah, the pressure's on now. See, pressure's on when you're opening up. He's very good at it now. He's too good on the whole time now. No, no, the whole time is like a life. The game puzzle. Welcome back to Embracing a Life of Dance, a podcast all about a dance as journey, the challenges we face and our growth along the way. All the while, hopefully sharing some unique experiences and inspiring you, the listener, to take that next step. And as Harmon likes to say, Embrace everything that dance has to offer on a deeper level. And here's your host, Harmon. Hey, Ronald applause. That was very well done. Thanks for the introduction, Marika. And if you're listening and you suddenly heard someone else's voice doing the introduction, that was our guest for the day, Marika. And I'd like to open up with a little introduction so you guys know who she is, know what she's all about. And then we'll get into the actual podcast. Let's go. So Marika is a Melbourne-based self-worth and empowerment coach, specializing in working with single women to rediscover themselves and reclaim their self-worth. Our socials frequently share wonderful advice, daily practices, and honest chats. A company that, in important reminders about treating ourselves kindly because let's be real, it's something we're all working on. Thanks for joining me today, Marika. Thanks for having me. That's absolutely spot on. Hey, I'm glad it is. Yeah. I was really nervous writing it out going like, "I don't want to make too many presumptions about what you do and what it is in, but I think it's nice to have something like that too. So let it fly. What it is you do." Yeah, absolutely. And I guess life coaching in general can be quite vague. So having something a bit more clear and something like that written out does help. Yeah, it actually helped me understand. There's one thing between just casually reading your posts and keeping up with what you do and kind of taking in the lessons and going and actually writing something like that out going, "Oh, now I actually understand more about what it is you're doing." And it's helped me figure out what to take from it and what to learn. Yeah. And there is that element of it. It's a profession as opposed to just, "I'm not just posting shit." Yeah. This is a career. That was something I hadn't quite fully connected. And then I did that and realized, "Yeah, I see what level this is at." Thank you. I guess it's always nice, I think, to start with raw dancers to a degree. I know that I was a dancer. Am I my mentor? Identify as a dancer? It's like an interviewer who is an athlete. No, don't. Don't. Not to that level. Not to that level. That's not. That's not. I don't even identify myself like an athlete who comes to dance. No, no, no. I don't even know what that sense is. When someone goes, "Oh, you're doing this, you're an athlete." Or you do that, so you'll do this. It's like, "Oh, a dance? A dance once a week? Does that make me a dancer?" That's a very deep question. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait for the real talk. There's many levels of that conversation I've been having back and forth with a lot of people. Yeah, I guess for me, it depends on motives, priorities, intention, all of that good stuff, your mindset as well. All that good stuff, which conveniently I'll get into later with you, Margot. I think like he was saying, part of it is the self identifying as well. Do you identify as an dancer? It's a question you have to ask. We have to ask ourselves all the time. Where are we? Who are we doing? Who am I? Who am I? Why am I here? How did I even get here? Speaking of how we got here, we can take it back a few steps and talk about how we met. Do you want to do you remember? Sure. Get into it. Last year, I decided to finally start learning SoulSales, one of my things for 2021. I started, did a few blocks, and then lockdown happened. When I restarted after lockdown, I picked up where I finished the last block. Obviously, having months and months of, I was incredibly behind more than I thought I would be. I was really, really struggling. I was on the verge of just walking out and quitting. I spoke to Diane and I was struggling. I need some help and she passed me on to you. That's how we met and used to spend a bit of time with me after a few weeks, figuring out the different steps and where I was at and what was happening and why I wasn't getting it. You really helped me feel more comfortable and comfortable in the classes. I really appreciated that. I was a little eye-opening seeing someone from a different perspective. Not to say you were really struggling. But most people aren't as open and honest about it and won't ask for help and won't really deal with that fear. You just came straight up to me and said, "This is hard. I need help, please." It was nice to be able to offer that back because I didn't reach out as much as I needed when I started. I'm glad I'm out of phase now, or at a place in my journey where I'm offering that to people. It's nice to give back to the community. It's often given back to me. It's a really cool reflection to say, obviously, being on the other foot as well. It took me a lot to ask. I am very, very vocal about all my socials around my experience with dancing and we'll talk about this later. I do it as a form of growth and a form of play as well. I've been vocal about my socials about how I'm learning this new skill and how I'm doing this thing and how much I'm struggling with it. I was like, "Surely they'll see my socials and surely they'll just know that I need help." Surely they'll reach out to me and help me, but that's not how group classes work. It's not the intention. There's a million people there and it's about teaching a whole group collectively. If you're the only one struggling, then it's your job to reach out and communicate your needs. A lot of the work I do is with my clients is actually telling them to communicate their needs. "Hey, I need help. Can you help me?" "No." What does that look like? Do I need to hire someone to help me? Do I need to go somewhere else? What's my options? You've got to actually say the words, "I need help." Remember when we were dancing, I looked at you and my eyes were like, "My eyes widen." I'm sending you a message through my eyes going, "I'm struggling. Please please please please please please." So, save me. It's like you're seeing someone drowning, but the only way you know that drowning is through the eyes. It takes us so someone to actually pick up on that social queue. I'm not quite there yet. You did get it, you saw it, you saw me drowning, I was like, "Please, why are you giving me that face?" And I'm like, "I'm drowning." I could recognise there's something to miss. I was like, "All right, I can stop playing it off. It's just a joke." Yeah, exactly. It's funny, like I was doing a beginner's class and everyone there is a beginner, even if it is level two or whatever. We're all beginners there and you can feel someone hesitate. And it's that hesitation that you're like, "Okay, something's wrong, they're not getting it." Or they've got a bit of fear as hesitancy to go ahead with the movement because they don't quite know it. But trying to give that signal to someone else who's also like, "I also don't get it." You're not going to have this, you know, there's a language that isn't going to work because you're not speaking the same way. Well, you're both speaking the same language of, "I don't know what's happening." Yeah, it's such an interesting mentality like seeing how classes work and seeing that. That's precisely how I see it. It's like, "You have one person who's struggling on their half and you want them to communicate something through dance to another person who's also struggling on their half." And you've got hesitancy meets hesitancy doubt meets doubt. It's just a mess. It's just a mess. Yeah, exactly. It's always an interesting dynamic catching that happens. It's been really good having a lot of the crew supporting and just so many of you being there and actually wanting to help. Obviously, it's sad that there are students are building us up to that point. And being able to give back is being a big part of your journey as well. Yeah, I think that was a big traveling point for us as we grew and as we got support. And as we now give support, that's what the community is. To me, the community is like, "Yes, if it's about building that." And it's about giving back and acknowledging that it's a moving and growing community. Like, people come and people leave. And it's nice to be that kind of steady point of like, people can come up to you and come to your level or like come up to you and see where you're at. Learn from you and move on and go to their own journeys and travel their own way. And you then, you see the next group come in and you act like a post. That's like a steadily there for people to go as you go past. Yeah, and I've noticed that. I'm even myself going through level to level. So I'm doing level three, but I finally feel like I have some idea of basic terms that I'm doing. And then there's new people who are just starting level two and I'm like, "Okay, cool. I have a bit more direction. I can lead." I'm not supposed to be leading, but I can lead a little bit more and sort of guide that's the way I can guide them on what to do next or what they're supposed to be doing and what kind of stuff. Yeah, where I'm at with that is it's almost like a priority for me. I've been having discussions more and more about what I'm trying to do at Dance and why I teach, why I join a career team and stuff. And like for me, I'm learning a big priority of what gives me fulfillment and what I enjoy is teaching and being part of that crew and giving back to the group. Yeah, that's my priority. How do you how do you think you prioritize where Dance is at right now? Great transition right there. No, it was a great transition. I was very impressed. So I'll be honest with you in terms of my priority list, dancing to me lies probably right at the bottom. As much as I do enjoy it, as much as it does bring me fulfillment and pleasure, it's not something that I find absolutely necessary for my life. And it is in a sense of it brings me fulfillment so it does help me balance that burnout scale, that sort of work life balance as you call it. I find that when I do do things like dancing and that element of play, I don't burn out as much because I spend more time doing things that I actually enjoy as well as just working. And that's what I want to talk about like masculine and feminine energy. So most of society is convinced that I'm not doing it. to live in this masculine energy world of, I have to be doing things all of the time. When I am doing, when I'm succeeding, when I'm progressing, then I am successful. Then I am worthy. Whereas the feminine energy is all about just being you're worthy because you exist. You can just be, you can play, you can flow through life and not have structure or, I guess, any control over what you're gonna do today, you know, what your body's doing, what this is doing, what that's doing, it's just allowing yourself to just be. - Yeah. For me, dance is that element. So as much as I structure, you know, I book my dance class in for Wednesday nights at 7.45. - Allowing for late-round classes, that's very true. - As much as I laugh for that, you know, I schedule that in. I also know that what happens in that class is totally out of my control, who I dance with out of my control. What steps are there? I have no idea. It just allows me to be fun. And by learning a new skill, it allows me to sort of step into that child-like spirit and just have fun, not have to control things, not have to get it right, not have to be perfect. I just have fun. - It's interesting. I'm so far on the opposite of that scale. I know I'm not alone, but I think not just like, there's one thing to say you're perfectionist and expect yourself to be perfect. And there's another thing where you're like, being very demanding on yourself. And like, actually, it's coming into a physical and mental effect on you. And I don't just like expect myself to be perfect, I need to be perfect. You can see my mood and my mentality and the way I dance change as the more and more I struggle with something. And I'll come back and I'll practice on my work on it and I'll be back and I'll be great. I'll be having a great time, all fun and smiles. But like, you'll see that frustration and that doubt settling very quickly in me. And that's something, I think, probably a part of it is like, how I treat dance and what a priority takes and what expectations I hold. But yeah, it's nice to see it doesn't have to be that way. And like, what it's like to experience the other side. And I'm going to be endeavoring in dance to be more and more like that, to allow myself to enjoy the play aspect more than just the training. - Yeah, absolutely. I just want to touch back on that element of perfectionism. I think it's a society where so conditioned that to be accepted, we have to be good at something. Whereas to actually get good at something, you have to do the thing. You have to do the thing over and over and over again. And you have to be willing to be uncomfortable. You have to be willing to let yourself stretch. And to be a beginner, we don't let ourselves do that because we're so scared of not getting it completely right. Like a lot of people that I talk to who are like, "Oh, I can't believe that you've started dancing as an adult." They're genuinely terrified of doing something and looking stupid. And that was my biggest fear as well. It's like, I'm starting this thing. And it's, I probably, I'm not going to get it right. I can't dance on a good day, let alone, completely dead sober and trying to follow steps. Following steps, I find really hard. So I throw a few to kill her out me, and I'm fine, but, Joan of End, drown in dance, dead sober with complete strangers, terrifying. It's like a thing when you see, I don't know if you remember, but like, well, I feel like a jab, no, I take that back. Go, tell me. No, say it. You can always take it out. My experience of that was when I started university and just seeing people who are much older than me, doing same courses and being around, checking out the uni level and me going, never having experience that as a viable option growing up. In high school, it was like, if you finish high school, you go to university, you got things to do, you got places to be, you got changes to make, you can't be in your 40s and figuring it out. And then you step out into the real world, and then you see, that's what it is. Like, I had classmates who were 35, who were 45, and then I started dancing as someone who was like 20. And for me, I was like, I jumped in, feeling late to that. Like, yeah, I should have been, I should have been doing this much earlier so that when I was an adult, I'd already be a fully fledged dancer. To me, the idea of being an adult and being 20, being 23, being 25, and being a beginner, is still something I struggle with. But it's like, I have friends who are 40, I regularly dance and share with people who are like 40, 50, much older than me. And they're either at a lower level or they're just having fun and they're just learning a new thing. I didn't judge them any way that I've judged myself for it. It's a really interesting contrast to be like, how harsh will be on ourselves to be perfect and accomplished. And then you meet people who are still figuring it out and you try to mind ourselves, that's okay. - Yeah, absolutely. When I first went to uni, I was the same. I remember seeing people who were older and I was like, check out this loser who's just starting uni now, like what the hell. And then, you know, two years ago, I went back to uni and I was the one that was 25 at uni, starting a brand new degree with 18 year olds. It's really humbling. It's really, really humbling. But in saying that you're also there because you've chosen to be there. Whereas, you know, when someone starts uni, a lot of it is conditioning. It's, I have to go to uni once I finish high school and then that's, you know, you're checking these boxes of the right thing to do. You're trying to fit into this mode of, you know, what society expects you to be, who it expects you to be, what it looks like to be happy, successful and worthy as a human. But the reality is we're all different people. We all have different playbooks of what that looks like. And we were all just figuring it out. Even with, if you're 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, like, everyone's got the same shit they're dealing with and we're all going in our own pace and that's okay. I think life's meant to be explored and it's meant to be fun and not just, I don't know, not just, you know, you can't just have it sorted out. You can't just, you just don't. Yeah. Yeah, we just, we don't have it all together and it's funny, you know, I often fall back into this whole of when am I gonna have my shit together. Actually, I've got a funny reference. Last year I was talking to one of my girlfriends. You know, there's like yoga, squeezy, pouch things. You know, like the. I do have no control. You know, the squeezy pouches, the yoghets and you like suck on them and. Oh yeah, the yoghets, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So last year I was talking to a girlfriend and I have this obsession, are you sure I have this obsession of being an adult and looking like an adult and how, you know, if I look like an adult and I'm successful and I'm really an all these things, right? And she was drinking one of these yoghets and I was like, oh, I don't know how you do that. It's such a child thing. My ego is like, it's such a child thing. Yeah. And she's like, so? Why does it matter? Why do you have to look like an adult? And I was like, oh, she's like, it's just convenient. I can drive in the car and, you know, drink my yogurt. It's convenient. Yeah. Who gives a shit what it looks like? And I was like, oh, you know, we're also caught up in trying to look a certain way that we forget to just live. Yeah. Yeah, making it so much harder for ourselves just to meet some expectation that we have growing up, some conditioning that's been built into us. And same with dance, right? Like we don't judge someone else for starting a dance class and being shit. Yeah. Expectation is that a dance class and be shit? I mean, don't get me wrong. I started thinking I'd be a complete natural. I'm not. But like you don't judge anyone else. It's like we have this, like you said, expectations for ourselves, but not for other people. Yeah. It doesn't make sense. We've got these two sets of rules. Hard to break them. And I think you get into that a lot in the kind of work you do. You, as I said, you address a lot of that in the kind of work you do. Would you like to get into where we can find more of that? What do you do? Yeah. So I'm more of your clientele and stuff. Absolutely. So I do work primarily with women. And a lot of the work I do is around building, understanding, around why they are the way that they are, around creating understanding of their childhood, what happened, what stories and beliefs are written from their childhood. And obviously further and ballad terrain, through their adult hold as well. And then the work that we do is around learning how to communicate their needs, learning to set boundaries, learning to get what they want, because they can actually ask for it. We're talking about this before, around how we can communicate that you need help by asking for it. That's right. We expect our partners, our friends, our colleagues, now, whoever, to just read our mind and get what we want. But unless you actually say the words, you don't get it. And then there's breaking through the fear of why we're not doing that. Why aren't you communicating that you need help? What are you so scared of? A lot of this work done unraveling that as well. So what else would you say are some of the core messages that you try and tell your clients that you find are some of the most frequently reoccurring issues that we have? The biggest thing-- one of the biggest things I work on is around communication. And just obviously boundaries falls into that. Learning to communicate your boundaries in terms of the physical boundaries, emotional, mental, spiritual, whatever it is, just being out of communicate, where that line is for you, what is OK, and what isn't OK. Just so you can communicate where you're at. If you're feeling extra tired, for example, one day, communicating, hey, I'm actually not available for this conversation right now. I'm not available. With this podcast, for example, we've got to do what we could go. And I was like, hey, I'm actually having a really shit day. I just do not have the capacity to do that. And without saying those words, you wouldn't have known that. And you were like, hey, that's cool. Let's do it next week. Whereas I could have showed up and I could have sort of half asked the thing. And then you would have resented me for half asking it. And it would have been shit. And you would be, well, that was a waste of time. Your time wasted my time. And now a waste of a podcast episode wasted a Saturday. So by me communicating, it sort of breaks free of that. And a lot of other work is around hard conversations. We call them hard conversations. But it's just being honest. We have so much fear around upsetting other people and being an inconvenience that we avoid saying things. And it actually causes more inconvenience by not saying the thing. Yeah. The same as in the situation I'm talking about. If I hadn't said that, I would have showed up. You would have resented me. So well, and it happens all the time. With partners with friends, whatever. And we don't communicate when someone's crossed a line or crossed our boundary. And we just don't speak to them. We avoid them for a week. Yeah. And it just builds-- And you don't resolve anything. No. It carries on over and over. Exactly. But having the hard conversation and then just moving forward, it'd be like, hey, that wasn't OK. OK, cool. I'm sorry. I won't do it again. Let's move forward. If I jump in to just tangent it back just for a second, I think as people who are listening to this and as we travel along our journeys, we're going to have people come into our lives and leave. in terms of our dancing lives. And a lot of people have been recently chatting with me and I've been getting more and more into the idea of dance partnerships and stuff. And one thing that I talked about with Tanvi and that relates to this is like, you need to have that open healthy communication ship, whether that's what you're. Well, first of all, it can be setting your boundaries. It's setting your expectations of what you want, setting your ambitions and your goals, what's driving you. And it's also just maintaining that as you go. So as you travel along the way, you don't build up a fear of having that healthy conversation and opening up and saying how your. And the other thing is like boundaries and expectations, they change. So as you start dancing with someone and training with them, over time, you learn more about yourself and them and what you're doing. And it's okay to accept that and allow yourself to have the conversation. It's hard, but have that conversation and accept the fact that you've changed and the best thing we can do is respect that and move forwards. Absolutely. And it's that permission to change your mind. Like, you may have had one particular expectation or intention for doing something, for doing salsa, but it can change. Like, you know, for me, salsa was intention. And I intended to do it as a way of growing, of learning a new skill. And then I realized it's a way that I actually can play, that I can do something that's a bit more fun, and a bit more for me. And there's no goal of. For me, to learn salsa, there's no goal. Like, yes, I want to learn salsa, but it's not about that. It's about me just having fun and letting loose. Yeah. I think that's a great way to get into it, because we've mentioned the idea of play and growth. You want to get a little bit more in depth with what that is for you, whether it's. So you say it's training as a skill and then transitioning to think of it as play. Do you want to explain to people what that is? To be playing when you dance? I think just like being a kid, you know, I've come from a personal training background. I've lifted weight since I was 15, so it's been 13, 12 years. Been 12 years, I've lifted weights for it. Lifting itself is very controlled. It's very structured. It's very. There's no free movement. It's all controlled. You count your reps, you count your sets, everything's, you know, tempo-based, whatever it is. Salsa is different. I particularly as a female, I have to follow. In my life, I do not follow. I am very. Now, it's a big part, yeah. I am very much a leader. I'm very much a go-getter. I do what I want. I go after what I want. And I am very controlled in the way that I do that. So coming into salsa, I now have to depend on you on knowing what you're doing. So you can lead me. And, you know, we can have fun along the way, but there's a lot of trust there as well. Yeah. And I like what you said about the boundaries and communicating thing because it's setting that clear early on of, you know, why are you here, but also is it okay if I do this? Is it okay if I do that? And having that conversation. Dancing is very intimate. And even for me, it crosses a lot of boundaries. But signing up to do something like salsa, it's accepting. And I'm okay with that. Like I've accepted the fact that I have to touch someone. Yeah. You're holding hands with someone, which I don't hold hands with people very often. How would you kind of sell it to people who have those boundaries and have those fears? It depends. It's a very hard way to answer that because for me, that boundary is porous. I do. I don't mind holding hands with someone. There are certain moves that I don't like and I won't do. But like that, what did you call it? Like some of the copers? No, no, no, I like that. I like that position. Yeah, that's not in. So in "Soulsade" and one of the first. I did a beginner's block, the first level one block at "Soulsade" Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So in "Lever 1" "Soulsade" and "Soulsade" and "Soulsade" and "Soulsade" and I did the "Lever 1" and at the end of each week, he would have us do this, you know, bonus finish or move. And there was one that was called the "Bomboleo". Yep. And I was just incredibly uncomfortable. Actually with every single move at the end of those weeks, I was incredibly uncomfortable. On a snake. Yeah, the snake, like there were just these. I was just, I just know. So it depends. Like, it depends on your boundaries and how close and comfortable you are. There are things that I'm okay with, things that I'm not. And that's just a human. We're allowed to have that as well and you can say no. I liked the Jey who takes the classes at "Soulsade" foundation. He actually gives you two options as well. So it's like, okay, if you don't want to be pressed up against someone, you can also take a step back and do the same move without touching them. Which is great too. Hands is one thing, but bodies press together to me just doesn't cross as too many lines. Which, I care, you're dancing. It's a hard one. It's a hard one. And it has to be tailored to every individual and you have to address that yourself. Oh, with it. Yeah. If it doesn't feel right, you sort of communicate with your partner or whatever. I think, like I said, you're stepping into something like dancing. You have to accept the fact that you've got to be touching someone. And that can be a mentor buried, a breakthrough and that's something you've got to do and whether work through with a coach or on your own or whatever it is. And you sort of figure out why you don't want to touch them. Do you just not like touching people? And if so, can you do a different form of dancing that you're not touching? My experience of that has been like a challenge of yourself awareness. But what I've seen and what I've noticed is very often, followers that I talk to will have these movements or have these dances with people. And after I was a girl, "Oh, he did that stuff to me." Or he put me in this dip or that he put this dip where I was resting on his knee. Or like, I almost touched the floor. Like, he was basically hugged up from me from behind. And you don't know. Like, you might have those boundaries. Or you're aware of those boundaries, but they're not a hard set. And you just don't have knowledge of what it is you're doing. And it's always an iffy thing to see. It's like, you have those conversations and you can't have to explain to them like, "Hey, look, yes, that's a thing. Like, yes, that's a move. But that doesn't mean you have to do it." And I think that's what your experience coming in is like. It's such a hard one because it's like, "Are you supposed to rattle off all the dance moves and say, is this okay? Is this okay? Is this okay? Is this okay?" And from one point of view, yeah, absolutely. Why not? But also, you're dancing with like 40 people on a class. Am I going to sit there and go, "Hey, is this okay with you?" Like, it's hard. It is hard. It's not an easy thing to just sort of navigate and figure out. But you sort of just go with it and you feel into it. I guess it's something makes you feel really uncomfortable. That's where it does. It takes speaking up and going, "Hey, I don't want to do this, but everything else is fine." Yeah. But yeah, it requires bravery and requires self-awareness. It's really hard. It's hard when you're starting out because you've. You just know it with us. A new person in the scene, it's something you haven't experienced. Yeah. And it's funny because I think on the whole conversation, it's like people are like, "Well, I don't want to be a bother." I don't want to be a bother and disturb the peace. Which is a common theme in a lot of people's lives. We don't want to bother other people with having that hard conversation or disrupting them or whatever it is. It's like, "I'll just let things continue the way that they are." I'll have my inner turmoil and I'll have my frustration. I can deal with my frustration, but I don't want to upset you. It's an ongoing struggle I think I have. It's like addressing my concerns that involve other people and not just dealing with it internally. Yeah. And it is for a lot of people. We're such a connected species. That's what we thrive on. We thrive on connection. Everything we do is around keeping us safe. And if that means sitting with our own sheet and not communicating it, that's what we do. I will switch it up because I have something I do want to go over with you. One thing is really important is I want to talk about different mindsets that we have. We've kind of explored a little bit earlier. I think we mentioned growth mindsets and other mindsets. Do you want to get more into what they are and how they affect us with dancing? Absolutely. So mindset is basically the way that people think about ability and talent. Someone who has a growth mindset believes that they can change anything. That they're constantly evolving and they can keep developing and growing and changing and learning and getting better at things. Whereas someone with a fixed mindset believes they are who they are. I'm skilled in what I'm skilled in. I'm better when I'm better. That's just how it is. But we know neuroplasticity of the brain literally says that we can rewire, we can create neuro pathways, we can literally change our brain and we can literally create new skills and abilities. We practice by doing the same thing and whether it's communication and boundaries and practicing having card conversations, you can get better at that. Or with dance by practicing dance moves, you can get better. For some reason now I can have a couple of weeks off and I still remember the footwork, which is blows my mind. I have a week off and I'm like, I'm better than I was two weeks ago. Blows my mind. But that's literally how the brain works. Yeah. Why do you think people settle into a fixed mindset? I find it pretty often. I feel like I was saying before, our brains are literally wired to keep us safe. Safety looks like being accepted by people around us and it's this whole, if I'm not good at something, then I'm not going to be accepted. Then I'm not going to be loved. Then I'm not worthy. Then I'm not good enough. And all the stories come from that. It's easier for me to stay in my comfort zone. It's easier for me to keep doing the things that I already know that I'm good at. Or I'm good enough at. You really like me because I can do all of these things. Why would I try serving you and risk being rejected? That fear, yeah. But I think the reason I would hope people develop more of a growth mindset is because you're dealing with your core needs, I think. I think as you say, growth, would I be correct in saying growth is one of our core needs? Yeah, absolutely. It's a core need, having a mindset of having that kind of a mindset is not just addressing the growth aspect, but you open yourself up to actually dealing with your other core needs and things that we need. Stuff we need to deal with. Do you want to get into what other examples of what these core needs are? Yeah, absolutely. Tony Robbins coined this concept around core needs and how everything that we do, every action, every choice that we make aims to fulfill one of these core needs. The six core needs are certainty, uncertainty, growth, significance, connection and love and contribution. So everything that we do, every action that we take aims to fulfill. feel one of these core needs. With dance, for me, a big part of it is the connection. Obviously, George spoke about the other week. We have that connection triangle. And dance, obviously, fulfills that with the music and with the partner. With the music and-- - And Mr. Bobby gave each other a little finger guns. You have a little winking finger guns to be like, gnail there. (laughing) - With the music and with our partner, there's an element of connection. You're working with someone, you're building that intimacy with someone to be able to connect with the music, but also be able to connect with the footwork and on an emotional mental level, I guess, through the dance that itself. In terms of variety, like for me, salsa is completely different to anything else. I actually do all my life. And it gives me, you know, that's the element of variety. It spices up my life. It's a new hobby that I can do. If I wasn't learning salsa, you know, we sit, we might sit in front of Netflix or Instagram, whatever, we'll just talk about before, how we're in such a high-paced world and we have so much stimulus available at the tips of our fingertips. I can literally scroll Instagram. I can find them different million movies on Netflix. I can do them at the same time. I have that much stimulus thrown at me, but it leaves me feeling unfulfilled. I talk with my clients a lot about how we can have unresourced for a resourceful ways of meeting these core needs, because something like scrolling Instagram and Netflix is unresourced for. I am not fulfilled. Versus me attending a salsa class, I get that hit of variety, I get that sort of simulation, but I'm left fulfilling for field. My heart feels full. I feel happy and I feel connected to something greater than me. I feel a part of a community, which is huge for most humans. And then obviously the last one is growth and that comes into learning something new. I, one of my biggest values is growth and learning, expanding my knowledge and getting outside of my comfort zone and same as you, Herman. Growth is a really big part of our lives and we're always looking to further ourselves and our abilities and just learn more. I love it. And I'm always looking to and encouraging to expand our mindsets, you know? Like I've worked in a very logical way, sometimes I'm like in a rational way. I like to be understanding of what's, what I'm approaching or what I'm going through and then evaluating what process it would take and getting this certainty and getting this understanding of what I'm doing before I do it. But as you said, uncertainty and things like that are a part of our core needs. Variety is important. I can't just like look for that. I can't just be confident the certainty of what I've got going on my life and having that stationary set pattern. What do you think holds people back from expanding out into it, like challenging ourselves and taking that in a big step? I think part of it is they just don't think of it. They don't think of doing something new because as an adult, like we spoke about, it's hard. It's hard to try something new as an adult. It's like making new friends as an adult also hard. Coming to, you know, I drive into the city on my own as an adult and I'm around, I don't know how many people are there, 50, 60 people. It's hard. It's a lot. I walk in there and I feel so small. I already, it's like, you know, you want to shrink and you want to sit down and you just want to hide. But, you know, in solstice, you have to be seen. You have to show up and you have to interact with people. Maybe not before the class, but once you're on that dance floor, you don't have a choice. You've got to work with the partners and you're working through the room with every single person. So you've got to work with them. Just requires you to communicate, requires you to trust and interact with another person. Socially very demanding, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Do you have any big fears that you feel like you've addressed? God, so many. So many. Oh, you know what? It's really interesting. I think a lot of people have, like I just said, have that fear of being seen. So coming into something and being seen as not good enough and being skilled as being bad at something as not being a natural dancer, as not being talented as, you know, it does it phase into our fears of not being good enough. You know, what does it mean if I'm not good enough? If I'm not a good enough dancer, does that make me any less of a human? Mm-hmm. You know, I do a lot of, obviously, all the work that I do is around self-worth and rebuilding that and reclaiming that. And it's taken a lot of strength and just sitting with myself to go, I can be a bad dancer and I'm still a good human. I'm still worthy. I didn't get that step today, but that's okay. I think like a week to week, we often get hooked on that feeling of, this week I did this and next week I did this. And now I'm a step better than I was last week. Like, it's that growth. But it's like a very specific kind of growth. It's like a growth you're only seeing week to week at a certain time. Over the course of six months, you might not continue seeing and happen in that kind of scaling up like a ladder like a staircase, sorry, where you came one week and you learned first part of it. Week two, you learned the second part, you've taken a second step on that staircase. But I think as we grow, especially with a skill that's like dancing, or I think with anything really, like it doesn't continue like that. You're gonna hit a plateau, you're gonna hit those challenging moments where you find humility or you find your ego kind of bruise where you're like, "Ah, this isn't as easy as I thought." I think it's good to challenge ourselves and not build in that expectation of always need to improve. And it's something, like it's an interesting thing I see happening, is like we hit a point where we cross the threshold of easy, easy instantaneous reward because you can come in one week and learn that thing. And the next week you learn the next thing and you go, "Well, I am now 2% better." And the next week you go, "I'm another 2% better." But you might get too, you might get halfway through that level of course we do. And you find that thing that's like challenging you. If you find yourself challenged one week, do you just not come back the next week because you didn't do as much, you didn't grow as much? And yeah, it's interesting seeing how people address the points where they really feel challenged. So whether that's early on as a beginner, or whether you're six months down the line or as we have a TSM, we have that progression stage from level 2 to level 3. And you'll often see people who get through the second half of level 2, or reaching the end of level 2, and now they're challenging themselves or they're not being challenged enough. And you see how their mentality changes between needing that. And I think it's just like part of it is just addressing the core need. It's like we want growth, we want to have variety, we want stimulus, and we want to feel CR growth, and we want to see our progression and we get significance through that pretty often. - Yeah, there's a couple things that you said there. The first one with the latter, I really like that image. It's, you know, you said we focus on the section by section like the 2%, but we don't really reflect back and go, I started at zero, I'm now at 9%, like that's fantastic. We don't really look at the big picture and we're so focused on our downfalls and what we're sucking at. We don't focus on the things that we're actually doing well at. And it's something that I find that we need to start actually addressing and making a conscious effort to do and celebrate ourselves, celebrate our wins. Highlight, what did I do well today? Yeah, what am I actually doing well at? It's really important to have some reflection in our lives. I definitely don't have enough of it. (laughing) Anyone who knows me knows I don't have enough reflection on my life, I've been answering a question multiple times and I've gone, oh, I'm coming up to three years of dancing. Three years ago, I didn't have a social life much less, much less like any experience of heart and a dancing and it's like take a second, address the fact that you have grown, address the fact that you teach a whole class by yourself now. Yeah, that's huge. Huge. You taught me. (laughing) Exactly. Yeah, I haven't, I just kind of, because I'm constantly like, what's the next thing? Exactly. Very my at next. I haven't actually, it's very rare that we'll take their-- The stop, pause. Stop and pause and look back at how high you've come up from where you started. Yeah, and it's interesting because it does play on ourself worth as well, like the more that we stop and pause and reflect and celebrate ourselves, we can actually see all the incredible things that we are and that we're doing to progress forward as a human and just how incredible we are in general. That plays in yourself worth if you can't see it and you're so focused on all of your downfalls and where you're coming up short and what's next. You don't really get time to think about that, you don't really get time to build yourself worth. Everyone always asks me, how do I build myself worth it? I'm like, you collect little things. Collect all of these little wins, but if you're not focusing on them, no wonder you're beating yourself up. No wonder you're anxious and you're scared of the entire world. No wonder you're scared of failing. No wonder you're scared of trying something new because you can't see the fact that you showed up today is fucking incredible. Can I swear? Oh yeah. It's fucking incredible. You can't see that. You don't allow yourself to go there. That's very important. And then the other thing you touched on was around capacity. We're having a chat before how everyone's got a capacity around how much growth that they can have. Yeah, I'm someone who is an incredibly high-dreamer. I'm currently learning Spanish and salsa. And obviously I still work and I work two jobs and I'm doing all three jobs actually and I'm learning different things all of the time. So we've got a capacity. I can only take on X amount. So there are times I go to a salsa class and I might nail the footwork, but you give me an arm. I assume it's you give me an arm, the entire thing crumbles. And that's my capacity for that day in that moment. That's not to say that tomorrow I can do the same thing and I won't get it. Our capacity changes. It's ever evolving and the more that something becomes normal or you repeat something. It just becomes-- Massive memory and something. That's the word. Yeah, you teach us in dance, right? Like you learn the basic footwork. I can do the basic footwork in my sleep. Yeah. But now you want to throw a turn in there. I can do the basic turns. But you want to throw a copper in there and I'm like, OK, let me pause and think about this. Exactly. And you don't-- yeah, you forget that when you started, what is a copar is now taking that kind of moment for you to pause and challenge yourself. It used to be a basic step. Literally. So look at that progression you've made from what you used to challenge you to what challenges you now. Yeah, yeah. So just because it challenges you now, it doesn't mean it's going to challenge you forever. Yeah. Just like the basic step challenge you and you and pass that hurdle. And now you're at the next thing. So yeah. - Exactly. I mean, even the idea of doing, I mean, it still freaks me out, but the idea of doing an inside turn, I'm like, what's that? - That's it, that's it. That's why I do this. (laughs) - As for a second, and then I'm like, just see, just see, it's the sit step. And then you go, and I'm like, oh yeah, I can do this, it's fine. - Yeah. - At it's, yeah. - We all have strategies of ways when you two remind ourselves that we're capable. - Yeah, and sometimes you just need someone to help you and support you. And then I'm like, hello, I see you struggling there. Do you want to hand them a kiss? Is it the eyes? Could you read my mind? - The eyes are a big people way. - Help. - Big, big, big, big, dear, and a half life energy. - Literally. - I feel like I'm pretty, like I cannot play poker. My face would just give everything I want. - I'm that person. (laughs) - No, I wish she had visuals here. - Yeah, I can just insert single images over. - Take selfies on me right now. - Fantastic. (laughs) - This is pretty interesting. I love the stuff that we got into. It's always really good having people on and one thing that's really fun is I can plan out as much as I want for the questions and the stuff that we would talk about. And we'll always get into a little bit more than with something else. And I'm not complaining. Like it's not rambling, it's not just pointless. I love every minute of it. I'm really glad you had all that to share with us. - Thank you. - Some of the minor remarks. Do you want to share some resources or things people should read up on to think are really helpful? - Yeah, I mean, in terms of learning about different mindsets, I think the book called Mindset by Dr. Carol Dweck is a really good place to start. She basically talks about what each mindset is, what they look like and how to develop a growth mindset. I mean, the biggest thing about developing a growth mindset is trying something new and persisting with it. That doesn't mean that you can't change your mind, but it's allowing yourself to be a beginner. It's allowing yourself to learn and keep progressing that way. The other one I would recommend is Dr., not a doctor. The other one that I would recommend is Brunei Brown, she's one of my all-time favorite authors. She's actually a shame on vulnerability research, herium. Obviously, with dance, it takes an element of being vulnerable and stepping out side of your comfort zone and just allowing yourself to be, like we said, be a beginner and allow yourself to make mistakes, allow yourself to get the thing wrong, to not be good enough at dancing. That doesn't mean that you're not good enough as a human. - No. - I mean, that your self-worth is any less. It just means that you're not good at dancing right now. That's it. - Yeah. - It's a message we forget to remind ourselves. - Yeah, it seems a really good author. She's got a lot of really, really great books. She's got a book called The Gift of Imperfection that I really like. Another one that's called Braving the Wilderness is really good as well. There's some good places to start. - And let's not forget, I do like to think you're Instagram is a wonderful resource because you have wonderful messages to share. And you know a lot of awesome content creators that you always share as well. So if you wanna have a quick plug of your Instagram as well. - Yeah, so I do share a lot of things that I'm learning about or things that are coming up with my clients that I find quite helpful. If I just see someone's post that I really like, I always share them on my Instagram, as well as I am currently taking on new clients. I do work with men as well, primarily women, but I am open to working with men if it's the right fit. Anyone wanting to understand why they are the way that they are, breakthrough their limiting beliefs and help them rediscover themselves and rebuild their self-worth. You can literally have whatever you want. You can have the life that you deserve, but it does take action. It does take you actually working through and owning your shit. - Yeah, that's beautiful. Thank you. - That's that work. - But I'm sorry, I'm gonna keep that in as well. That maybe not saying it and then going to Zawa. I'm gonna keep that in. That's great. Thank you so much, Maria. Thanks for joining me. - Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. I really enjoy this chat, actually. - Yeah, it's really fun. - It was interesting to see what comes out, like Carmen said, we had a structure we ran through and then it just started blowing. - Yeah, that's fine. It's totally okay. We had fun. - Well, it's nice. - So we hope you have fun listening to this. - Thank you so much. If you guys enjoy this, please find me at Marika and just go on Instagram. - Yeah, and I'll be sure to plug and share that as well. So keep an eye out. - I'm not gonna go. - Oh, I'm sweaty. I'm so sweaty, guys. I literally feel like I'm bloody. My jumpers. No, I know you have it. That's fine. Oh, God.