Episode Transcriptions Unedited, Auto-Generated.

Tyson: 00:00:14 Welcome to the social community and show or it's our go w learn growing transformative person going to come today. I'm talking with Lauren and Midgley. After 25 years working for two fortune 500 company in sales and marketing, Laura launched her consulting business in 2010 helping small business owners be more profitable, treats your audience. She added being a speaker and an author to her marketing efforts. The game changer for Lauren and her business was in 2014 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Now point forward, Lauren shifted her message to live each day fully be satisfied and get the things done that mattered. Her Amazon bestseller. It's 6:00 AM and I'm already behind. Strategies to get caught up reinforce that message. 2019 Lauren decided to do a personal project sending a handwritten card. She designed those who mattered to her. The card simply said, you mattered to me in calligraphy was a heart response back was astounding and deeply touched.

Tyson: 00:01:11 The recipients are in saw the need. The others had to send the same message to their inner circle, so she launched the you matter to me. Greeting card business called yes, you matter. Lauren has also written two eBooks on how to stay connected to those who matter and speaks on to a variety of groups on the art of staying connected to those who matter with. Also with another book coming in probably late 20, 20. I'm sorry, April 20, 20. We do talk a lot about that pivotal moment when, when, when cancer really, I want to say ignited her life in any, I hear this a lot from people and until you talk about this in episode it sparks something and it gets rid of that nonsense in this, this, this frivolous stuff that goes on. I think we had a wonderful conversation, a lot of different insights she shares, she's been around a bunch of different things. Without further ado, let's talk to Lauren. Lauren, welcome to social community show. Thank you so much for joining us. I look forward to our conversation. So many things you've done and I just really want to jump in and unpack some of this stuff.

Lauren: 00:02:12 Sounds good. Glad to be here. Tyson.

Tyson: 00:02:15 Yeah. So when I was reading your bio stuff, w when we tried to before you cut your teeth into, you know, the corporate world and it seems like you kind of made a bit of a name for yourself in the productivity space. Is that, is that accurate?

Lauren: 00:02:27 That's correct. For the past nine years I've been speaking on it, writing, blogging, mentoring, coaching, consulting, you name it. I've done it. I love it. It's, it's a, I'm wired for productivity. Tyson.

Tyson: 00:02:40 That's good. A lot of us aren't. I'm, I'm captain distraction. I just keep myself distracting myself. This morning I was like, I got things to do, but so what was going on in the corporate world and you realize that you were seeing, and I was like, I gotta get outta here and productivity is where I need to go.

Lauren: 00:02:59 Well, I'll tell you, it's really interesting after you've been in corporate for a while, you feel like you kind of know the game. You enjoy the, I enjoyed the work. I really, truly enjoyed the work, but it was one of those things where I knew I was ready to make a move. My mom was an entrepreneur. While I was in corporate, I worked with franchisees who were small business owners and I lived vicariously through them and I, and I was like, I was wanting to be one of them. I was wanting to be one. And then it kind of came a time in my life where I was doing a lot of traveling. My kids, one was in middle school, one was in high school, and it was time for me as a single mom to be at home knowing that they would be gone soon. And I really wanted to just kind of put my career on hold, hang with them for a little bit, and then I jumped into the entrepreneur world.

Tyson: 00:03:54 That's tough. I mean

Lauren: 00:03:57 [Inaudible]

Tyson: 00:03:58 That's, that's risky or you know, a lot of people would say that's, that's, that's, it's dangerous. You know, you're a single mom, you have this great coffee job, you knew the ins and outs and to just say, you know what, F it all you know, and just go for it. What, what was going on? Like that's, that's, that's, I like that. I mean, that's awesome. But what was that?

Lauren: 00:04:16 Well, w it was kind of like a perfect storm. There are lots of things that were happening kind of at that time. My mom was passing away from cancer and so I was trying to do the corporate job, trying to hang out with her for long weekends. She lived in Florida. I lived in Texas. My son ended up in a kind of a, he was on one of those ATV vehicles and, you know, trying to catch big air and, you know, landed wrong. Ended up with a, an incredible spiral fracture of his leg. We had a huge conference of our franchisee. I was like, everything was kind of happening right at that time. And it was, it was a kind of a triggering event saying, Oh my gosh, is this what I really want to be doing? At that conference you know, had some kind of crazy things happen when I was on stage doing, you know, my, you know, state of the union address and I was like, you know what?

Lauren: 00:05:10 I think it's time for me to go here was what was crazy Tyson that I think really mattered at the time was I had a freedom fund, let's call it that. So I had invested in some Apple stock way back when and it was probably about 10 years prior. I had bought some Apple stock at a really reasonable price and not a lot just, but, but I sucked it away. And it was one of those things like, I didn't know what it was for at the time, but I knew it wasn't for college. It wasn't for retirement. It wasn't to buy a house wasn't to spend, but it was just there. Yeah. And and then as things kind of heated up in the corporate world and I was like, okay, I think I'm ready to go. That freedom fund was what financed me for a few years. Dude, let me get the business off the ground.

Tyson: 00:06:02 And that's the key. That's probably what gave you that bravery and that freedom to say, you know, this is free money in a way of let's go have fun and give it a shot and see where I go.

Lauren: 00:06:12 Exactly. And you're right, cause it really was, and at the time that company that I've created was called courage to succeed, coaching courage to succeed coaching. And it was really my courage to succeed. But you're right, the key there was, it was the confidence. It was like okay it bought me some time to figure this out and really true that be truly be the entrepreneur that I was jonesing for when I was working with our franchise franchisees. So.

Tyson: 00:06:38 Right. What was that? What was that self talk like? What was that like? How long did you have to convince yourself or talk yourself into it or how did that go to say, forget it, let's tap into this money and let's go.

Lauren: 00:06:48 It was probably about five months total. So you know, my mom passed it. I mean, it was like, it was, as I said, a triggering of events and the self-talk kinda like, is this what you want to be doing? Is this how much time, you know, away from home and it, yeah, it didn't stop. It just kept going on in the head. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then it was kinda like, okay, time to pull the trigger and you know, and make that happen. I actually resigned in may, but my final work date was in June, the end of June. So the resignation that I thought was going to be two to four weeks ended up, you know, a little bit longer, which was okay. But, you know, it was like, it was crazy because I had been with that company for 17 years, a total. And so it was a big step. And as you, as you said, the self-talk was incredible, but here was what was amazing. Once you make a big decision like that, that you're going to leap and jump, if you will. It's kinda like, then there's no going back. Once you've got the clarity that, okay, I'm going to do this. I intend to do it, like move forward, lets me, you know, I'm, I'm kinda, once I made the decision, I'm not going back. I w I'm, I'm moving forward. Right? Yeah,

Tyson: 00:08:03 Yeah. That's the thing. That's what they say. Right. You know if you want to take the Island, you got to burn the boats. You know, when you have this plan B and C and D and you know, you're like, well, and you start to waiver and things get hard and you just quit so fast and easy. And that really is, I know I've done that a hundred times a month. I've got a backup plan, I got a little thing going. And it's easy to backpedal. It's easy to just give up and run away when you shove back on a boat and onto the next.

Lauren: 00:08:25 Absolutely. And you know, it's kinda one of the things I say that like, you know, if you're hesitating or you feel the resistance and you're not ready to commit, you know, look at that hesitation, look at the resistance because there's something underneath that that you really need to get ahold of, if you will. And but when you make the commitment man, just go, just go. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tyson: 00:08:51 Is this, the new year is upon us and by the time this comes out, it should be in mid end, the January most people have given up on all kinds of things by now. What, what are like the two or three things that people can do that they should be doing that's just really the highest impacts, really just going to help them accelerate their productivity, knock these things off their to do list or their, their new year's resolutions, whatever that is that they're working on.

Lauren: 00:09:14 Well, I think one of the things that I like to do is truly identify what are my top three priorities for the upcoming year?

Tyson: 00:09:23 [Inaudible]

Lauren: 00:09:24 Getting really clear on what my revenue streams are, what's my product, what's my service that I'm offering?

Tyson: 00:09:29 Hmm.

Lauren: 00:09:30 And the other part of that would be how can I execute? Well I just did my 20, 20 plenty on high level. I was basically two pages, lot of white space in between. But kind of thinking, what resources do I need? What skills do I need and then how do I, how do I really move this forward? One of the things that I do as part of the productivity Tyson is I do a workshop called the art of doing less and getting better results. And I believe that, you know, there's a way to do what I call do a do last year, meaning pick just a couple of things and do them really, really well in your business. And rather than trying to do five things, well, eight things, well just you dig deep in at least one or two areas. So you're known for that and it'll be amazing the doors that were [inaudible] well open once you commit and are focused on that particular one or two areas.

Tyson: 00:10:34 What are some of the pain points you kind of keep seeing over and over the people that just aren't focusing on what the people you work with? What are some things maybe spark something for the listeners?

Lauren: 00:10:43 Yeah, and you know, this was crazy. I just had a meeting with a client this morning, loved her and I, and here was I not only with her but with other clients. I asked the question, what do you really want? And I try to end, you know, you think it's, it's really a basic question, a simple, easy question, but it's not. And so it's like, what do you really, really want from this business? So her answer initially was a certain dollar amount of dollars that she wanted to earn revenue wise for the year. And, but then it was like as we dug deeper and I kept asking the question, what do you really want? What do you really want? And as we cut, you know, more things kept coming out. But I think that's an area of a pain point that we are not clear on what we really want. But once we are kind of back on my corporate decision, once you are, you can move forward. You can be on honest doc. [inaudible]

Tyson: 00:11:39 That's good. I, I I work with a lot of clients and marketing. So, not necessarily the thing that a lot of people there, they are stuck there and they don't, you know, they started their business for whatever reason, whether it was money or freedom or something like that. And they really don't, nobody know what's going on. They are just going through the motions and then when they do get stuck, you know, when you don't have that clarity it is Tufts. Like what's the next decision? I don't know, cause I don't know where I'm headed, you know?

Lauren: 00:12:01 Right. It's like I don't know what question. I don't know what I don't know. And if you really think about it, what's underlying that would be either some element of fear and the other element of risk of, well, how much risk do you want to take? I mean, you mentioned it that when I'm pulled the trigger and made the decision, that was a risky decision for me to make. I was a single mom. I had a house, I had bills to pay, et cetera. But it was, it was kind of one of those things that I was willing to tolerate a certain level of risk. But was there a huge amount of fear? Absolutely. Because now it's really on me and I don't have that twice a month paycheck. Right. And it's at some point that freedom fund was going to run out. So you know, it's like what do you really want? So the pain point is I think for many individuals is just getting in touch with how do you get to that? How do you figure that out?

Tyson: 00:12:56 How did you, how did you keep that fear at Bay through all that, you know, that initial transition from corporate paycheck to paycheck?

Lauren: 00:13:05 Part of it was, it's a, it's a good question. Part of it was truly budgeting, if you will, or allocating out the dollars cause it would have been very enticing to have just you know, blown the wad if you will. And, and, and you know, so I need all these different things and it, and the reality was just keeping a measured amount of dollars flowing in, but not too much. Cause you know, here's what really needed to happen. And it did for me was there was a period of time where you have to still feel hungry because if you're not hungry, yeah. Meaning not really hungry, literally with, for food, but a hungry where you've got the spark and the desire, you know, you get into that world of complacency. There's one client that I work with and the re and she wants to be a speaker and she is looking to be an author, et cetera. But the deal is if you look at her lifestyle, what's all around her is she is very comfortable and she's not hungry enough.

Tyson: 00:14:09 Yeah, no, I have that conversation a lot. I learned that a few years back and I really from, I think it was from Tim Ferriss to see, he said you know, get comfortable being uncomfortable. And I was like, that's dumb. And I was like, there's something there. Cause I think this is stupid. And I S I have mold on it for a while and yeah, sorry. I'm thinking of all the things I'm not comfortable with and why am I not? And I started trying things and getting outside of my boss and my world just exploded, you know? And but I was talking to somebody the last week or so about something similar about, you know, like they had this moment in their life where they just, you know, suddenly you're like, they've just kind of woke up and you're like, how, where did this come from? And it's like you were comfortable and something happened that that thing happened and you suddenly kind of open your mind.

Tyson: 00:14:51 You got kind of, you know, free in a way and said, Oh like all this stuff going army. I just was going through the motions and I was just doing these things. And there's a lot to that. You know, there's a lot to, to finding that this confidence and seeking it out. And you know, somebody had asked me to do an event and my first thought was, no, that's not my style. It's my thing. And I was like, you know what, I'm in. I was like, cause I just makes me absolutely uncomfortable. I hate it.

Lauren: 00:15:13 Right? So sometimes if we are so comfortable, we really need to look at how can we inject [inaudible] some uncomfortableness in our lives like you did with that event. Because what happens is, I'm sure for you, Tyson was, you know, your juices start flowing. You're, you know, you don't want to fail, so you're going to show up and you're going to do the best that you can and then wow, it just kinda changes your world. Right? And in that uncomfortable, yes. I think that's what Tim Ferris Ferris is talking about is that's when you grow or that's when you realize, wow, I have so much more

Tyson: 00:15:49 Potential. Yes. The thing is like, what, what are we scared of? What, what, what is it that I'm fearful? You know? And that's a point. The problem with this, this, this event I was doing is these are things I don't like to do. I don't like, you know it's going to involve, you know, touching, there's different types of things and, and being on stage and stuff. And I do not want to do any of that. I have no desire. And this is kind of where my uncomfortableness, you know, I, I tackled it first. I don't like people touching me. I don't let people hugging me. And so I went out and I, I, I tackled that now. I have no problems with it. It's like the weirdest thing. I was like, despise it for 15, 20 years. Now. It's no big deal, you know?

Tyson: 00:16:25 And that's where it comes in. That's why I look at this and I'm saying, okay, why, why am I, what's making me uncomfortable? What can I learn here? What skill can I develop? What fear can I get over? What crap in my head am I talking about? You know? And that's the thing I do with my family too. Along these same lines is what I've been doing lately is pretending like we're poor, you know, at any moment the world can change, has nothing to do with us, you know, another financial crash, get com. So make a drop a nuclear bomb. Are we prepared? You know, a lot of us, you know we're not, we're, we're, we're, we're very comfortable. We have [inaudible] maybe you're lucky to have a middle class, upper middle class life. And that's what we live. And I try to teach my kids, like, listen, we can get some beans, we get some rice and we can live.

Tyson: 00:17:08 We'll be just fine. And it's been eyeopening. He's like, what are we scared of? What, what are you scared of? You know, especially as my kids start to get older, you're going to leave this house, you're not going to be rich all of a sudden, or you're not going to be well off all of a sudden, can you survive these things? What are you scared of? Are you scared of sleeping on the sleeping bag? Are you scared of not eating this great food? You know, and I think those are fun things we can push ourselves to find these limits.

Lauren: 00:17:30 Right? And you really find your inner strength with that. You're, you're digging deep and saying, okay, yeah, I can still survive. It's not maybe the way I want to survive, but I still can survive. Right, right. Yes. Yeah, definitely.

Tyson: 00:17:41 To show ourselves how much we can endure. I think a lot of us don't realize that the pain we can endure, the level of suffering we can endure, the hunger we can and all this, this type of stuff, and it's really powerful. It's really, I found for me, it's really, it really kind of freed me and unleash me from this stuff. You know, I've been doing fasting. I'm not worried about being hungry. I'm before I speak, running around from meeting to meeting and it's like I've got to stop at a Jack in a box or something. Where's a grocery store? I can grab a sandwich. I'm going to die. It's been three hours since I ate and, and freeing that from, from my life. It's been like, damn, I'm hungry. Big deal my day. And I just know I'll be just fine and I'll be okay. I'm doing a fast here. I'm recording this. We're just, before Thanksgiving and [inaudible] I kind of joined this three day fast from the Sunday night to Wednesday night. And some of my friends are like, dude, I thought but joining you, but I got to eat. And I say that I used to be like that. And it's like freeing ourselves from these things is so powerful.

Lauren: 00:18:40 Right. And I think you and I talked about before about the whole 30 day kind of challenge. You know, there's different things that, or the seven day challenge, whatever it might be. And until you do that or you kind of play that game with yourself, you don't know what you can really do. Or, or in the three day fast, how sharp does your mind become on Wednesday or Tuesday today? You know, it just, it's amazing. And until you engage with it, you don't know. You don't know. And, you know, you and I had also talked about in my journey from 2010 when I started as an entrepreneur until today, you know, in 2014, you know, I ended up with cancer and and how that impacted, did, you know, I like to say, am I going to make life before cancer, life after cancer and how it, it really gave me that, as you said, really the [inaudible] you don't until you know, you really don't know what you're capable of.

Tyson: 00:19:38 Yeah. Right, right. Let's, let's kinda unpack that a little bit. How did, how'd that come about? What was that? Can you walk us through that moment leading up to, you know, when you, when you found out what was kind of happening?

Lauren: 00:19:48 Sure. What was happening was I had some pain in my breast and it was like, Oh, this is not good. So obviously went to the radiology the mammography and all that to figure out what's going on. And you know, it was one of those things, Tyson, I knew deep inside, this is not good. This is absolutely not good. Something's going on. Got to deal with it. And it was pretty quick in terms of, let's say I went in on a Thursday by Tuesday I knew I was in trouble. I knew that there was a cancerous mass and then, you know, then ultimately, I mean it was really, I mean, they move quickly, which was great, but it was the first thing that went through my mind was saying, okay, can I do this and can I get rid of this cancer and not tell anybody?

Lauren: 00:20:39 Meaning I still was building the business. I still was speaking on stages. I had published book at that point and it was like, is there a way that I can kind of just treat them this and keep on going and keep the facade going? So that, no, it didn't. Yeah, it was kind of like, it was like [inaudible], well, let's just let it be a blip in my life. Right? Well, the reality is that doesn't happen, but you know, reality is, you know, chemo will kick your butt. You know, reality is, you need people around you to kind of support you and help you. And, and so I went through about 18 weeks of chemo treatment. Oh, probably about four or five weeks of radiation and three different surgeries. And you know, all told, it was probably about a year from a recovery standpoint, but in that whole process, you know, I had some mentors that told me like, you know what, Lauren, you can still work.

Lauren: 00:21:34 It's just going to be different. And it was an eye. I was doing consulting, coaching at the time, and I would have the cult consulting, coaching clients actually come to the house rather than me going to there place. And it was what I got really, really clear on, or two things. Tyson, one was my level of energy. So it wasn't about time management. It was truly our productivity, which was my [inaudible] topic of choice, right? But it was really about me managing my energy. When I had energy, I could do stuff and I could work or you know, visit with friends and, and do my mastermind. I was involved in a mastermind at the time when I didn't have energy. I really, really needed to pull back. Right. And relax and rest. And the second thing that really helped me understand was, and I put it in my book this, it's 6:00 AM and I'm already behind book and it's five words and the five words are what matters most right now.

Lauren: 00:22:33 And it was really the truly the true understanding of priority. What do I need to put my energy on right now? And and that okay was huge in terms of my getting through that period of time coming out of it cancer free now, which is awesome. Yeah. But it, you know, it truly is one of those things that Hey it's an unexpected event and the reality is we all have an expected events that hit us, either a loss of a loved one, loss of a relationship or you know, a potentially life threatening disease that you have to figure out. So a couple of things, I want to unpack it a little bit. Do you, you talked about it could be your story, I guess the beginning of your cancer journey is you wanted to put this facade up. Why, why was that?

Lauren: 00:23:26 Do you, did you ever think through that? Yeah. Well I, you know, I think when you're a speaker and when you're, you know, constantly putting yourself out there networking and let's call it your, I call myself the humble hustler. I'm hustling, if you will, in a good way for business. And it's me, I'm business development and if, and I'm also responsible for my livelihood to bring in the dollars. So the facade was, you know, and I've seen this over and over where, Oh, don't hire, don't hire her, don't put her on stage. You know, she's got cancer. Don't know if she's going to be feeling okay when we book her six months from now or you know, it's just that whole, and I hate to say it, but there's still a stigma about somebody who gets ill that, you know, like people kinda begin to back away. And I didn't want that to happen. I was like, no, I want to be still front and center and, and you know, doing the business and, but you know it. Yeah. And that was really kind of the, the facade part of it, if you will. I'm having a conversation with my two kids as to, Hey, you guys, here's the status of mom. That was a very, very hard conversation.

Tyson: 00:24:36 It's funny that you, I hear, I can see how that, that people would, would be hesitant or shy to book your whatever. The funny the, my first thought is like, let's get this lady. Like if she can get on this stage and she's got cancer, any shit you people in this audience can be doing. You know? I find that empowering in a way

Lauren: 00:24:56 Of a, you're right. You're right. Exactly. It's like, yeah, if she can do it, you all could do it. Yeah. Why don't you slackers or what?

Tyson: 00:25:01 Yeah. Use your sprained ankles. Nothing. Let's go like this is nothing. You know? That's funny. That's the way I thought of it. I see that being a problem. Yeah. I can see, especially it sounds like this was kinda young in your business and the time.

Lauren: 00:25:14 Yes. So it was, you know, I was maybe four, you know, three, four years into the business, if you will.

Tyson: 00:25:20 Yeah, very young. Still a lot of susceptibility there too to revenue. I can see that. And then I guess the second thing that interests me with that story is it's energy. Like what, what did you do to it to get it? Could you, could you figure out what was zapping it from you? How did you handle that?

Lauren: 00:25:35 So for me, and again, everybody's chemo protocol is different and treatments are different, but you know, I was able to kind of figure out a pattern, you know, that I'd get the chemo treatment, I get the white blood shot. Right. You know, shortly after that to build the white blood count and I would have no energy. And it was about, you know, seven to nine days where I was just, you know, not very functional if you will. And you know, but then, you know, I had 12 days that were good. So it was like I knew when those 12 days were coming like, okay, just do it. But you know, it was I would, you could create a little bit of a pattern going if you will, but overall for anybody going through, you know, that type of situation even health conditions, for many people, it does affect your energy and so you've got to end. So part of that is I'm a morning person, I have more energy when I wake up in the evening or late afternoon or even even to this day looking me in the evening to do an evening event, if you will. I'm not top of my game versus you book me in the morning, nine, 10, something like that, man, I'm on it. I've got the a game going so it's still persists.

Tyson: 00:26:48 Yeah. That's a residual thing from your cancer treatment and I hope. Yep. Oh, okay. I see. I see. Yeah, it's good that you've spent the time to think through that and, and analyze, you know, I can, I can just kind of envision it now. You're like cancer treatments on Monday. I got 10 days, I'm down 12 days, my schedule is gonna be packed. And then I'm going to wind that down and just kind of go through that as a, how it kind of went

Lauren: 00:27:09 And it is exactly how it went, exactly how it went. But you know, but even, you know, yes. And, and, and you know, you're, you're try it, you know, the self-talk during that period of time was pretty incredible as well. It's like, you know, you got this, you can do it, you know, and, and and having a good, you know, a good attitude about it. And it's hard. I mean, it's not, I make light of it and I'm laughing about it, but it was not really a laughing matter. It was very intentional, if you will.

Tyson: 00:27:36 Right. Well, what, what was that self taught like what were the couple of things that just really kept you on track and didn't allow you to spiral down or just kind of give up

Lauren: 00:27:45 Whatever it was part. And part of that is who's around you and who's, you know, who's it was amazing. The people that showed up or not, people I had thought would show up, you know, some that I thought would didn't, and that's okay. But it, you know, so it says people around you, they kind of help you. I did a lot of positive reading, if you will. I connected with some people on Facebook that were kind of going through the same thing at the same time. Yeah. So I mean, it, to me it's really all about relationships and connections.

Tyson: 00:28:17 Yeah. Building that community around you. What was, what was the a technique or something like that that people could kind of implement that to, to help give me, cultivating those people around them if they're in, maybe not necessarily just cancer, but in a tough time. Like you have some tricks for that or what things you use?

Lauren: 00:28:33 Well, you know, there's some people on Facebook that will share a lot, you know, on Facebook, right. For the public to read and, or friends. I'm kind of one of those that I share through Facebook messenger. So I, that was my technique was really reaching out and you know, kind of private one on one. So let's say I see that you're going through something similar to me. I may not know you, but I know you through your posts or whatever. So it's a vulnerable, vulnerable first step for me to reach out and say, Hey Tyson, this is kind of me. This is what I'm going through. I kind of see you're going through the same thing, you know, Hey, could we connect? And it might even be through just online or it could be, Hey, here's my phone number. Are you open to talking to my phone? Kind of thing. And in, in just, you know, at the just pure human level. And that was one thing that really truly did help. Mmm. And, and again, it was you're vulnerable. You already know you're vulnerable when you're in that situation, but it's even one step further on vulnerability too. Reach out and say, Hey, you know what? I could use a little bit of positive self talk.

Tyson: 00:29:42 What about you? Let's, let's catch up with one another. So, so are you just kind of hanging around cancer groups, friend groups, peer groups, and then just, you know, looking for what people are saying and just jumping in.

Lauren: 00:29:53 Yeah, absolutely. Just commenting or, or private messaging.

Tyson: 00:29:56 Right, right, right. Oh, that's good. I like that. As the thing that's the, the one good thing about the internet and social media and all these types of things is, is these opportunities to reach out to people. And you know, especially if you, you feel some, you know, something, you know, you're, you're scared or you're lonely or you're not a people person. Whenever it's easy to, to sit behind a computer or your phone and, and have these conversations with people, whether it's, you know, you're getting the, the advice or the help or you're giving it to, it's, it's really opened up our communities in a, in a way that never has been before.

Lauren: 00:30:26 Right. And the way I look at it as you can find those kindred spirits. And again, I think there's, there's some weird stuff out there as well, but I mean, if, you know, if you were to, you know, look up, you know, if I had reached out to you, you know, what are you going to do? You're probably going to either look at a, you're going to Google my name, you're going to look and see if I've got a website, you're gonna look at my LinkedIn, you're going to, you know, you're going to vet is a little bit, before you kind of maybe jump back into especially, or let's say I reached out to you and you were a friend of a friend kind of thing. Yeah. There are people out there that can help us kind of be, feel more supported. Right.

Tyson: 00:31:02 What did you struggle with maybe coming out of your shell or kind of talking to people you didn't know about these kinds of things?

Lauren: 00:31:09 Yeah, I did. You know, and I will tell you there were, there were some people had suggested to go to cancer support groups locally and it was, you know, for me it was, I didn't want to do that. You know what I mean? I just, I didn't want to dedicate the time and or the energy to that. Cause one of the things that I found when you're in that kind of situation where you have cancer, here's what happens. Tyson, it's crazy. You get all these stories and people like, Oh yeah, I gotta to tell you my aunt had the same thing and you know, but she died. They're like, okay. So like there was a period of time where you really don't want to hear other people's, I'm going to call it cancer stories if you will, because sometimes those endings are not what you want to hear.

Lauren: 00:31:56 No, I'm hoping I stay, you know, but it says like you, like I don't want to go down that road kind of thing. But so I look for more for people that were very positive and I'm going to call it more resilient. They, they accepted where they were, but it was, they were resilient. But it's like, yeah. In fact, I had one friend that she was she was a really crazy lady and she had stage four pancreatic cancer. She said, Lauren, when you go in for your cancer treatments and you get the infusion, you know, you're in this chair for six hours. She said, take noise canceling headphones. She's, and I said, what? To listen to music. She goes, yeah, take the, take your music too. They said, but she said, there may be around you that you don't want to hear and what you do is you just put the headphones on and your guest. And I was like, Oh my God. That was a blessing.

Tyson: 00:32:48 Is, is there, is that an environment more negative than, than, than neutral? Maybe.

Lauren: 00:32:56 It's a little bit of both. It's, you know, it's, it's negative, it's positive, it's neutral, you know, it's kind of what you make it or what you tune, you know? Yeah. I would say you do put your forced fields up like woo. It's like, okay, now I don't need to hear that. Because, again, as we were talking about earlier, we manage our own self-talk. Right. And [inaudible] there was nobody else to manage it. What's going on inside our heads but us. Yeah. And if we start listening to some other stuff, it's like, nah, I don't need to be listening to that. Right,

Tyson: 00:33:28 Right, right, right, right. I can imagine. Well one thing I always hear, I, I've never, I don't know anybody personally that has had cancer and not knowing my family. But I always hear as the best thing that ever happened to me and it, and you hear that and you're like, something's wrong in your brain. It does that. Do you feel that way? Is that something you experienced? Maybe not to that exact level, but

Lauren: 00:33:47 Somewhere in that range, somewhere in that range. Because here's where it helped me was I got really, really clear about, again, what matters most right now. What matters to me. And it was, you know, afterwards, it was a lot easier for me to distance myself from, let's call it the energy drainers, the time suckers, the drama mamas is like, nah, I don't, you know, I just, I don't have time for that, if you will. And so it helped. I think on the flip side though, you know, you always always have the health concerns of when might it come back or what else has it affected in my body has an aged me more than, you know, my actual years. You don't know that. Right. But, but yeah, but you know, it, it was truly a wakeup call, that's for sure. And I have a great affinity for people that are [inaudible] in the midst of it right now going through treatment or who are also survivors as well. I mean, it's not something you would obviously wish on anyone.

Tyson: 00:34:51 No. Yeah. No, definitely not. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Not even your worst enemy. That's not fun. Well w well, what is the, some, some techniques or some ways you, you, you use or you found to help you get away from these trivial things that you notice that we're really sucking?

Lauren: 00:35:09 Yeah, part of it, you know, I just distanced myself. It, it, you know, you would be you know, you meet somebody at a networking event and they, you know, you could tell that they're just either not, let's say your type of people or we're not your tribe. That's probably a better word to use. Or just, yeah. You know, I'm a perpetual optimist and as optimists we know can clearly spot the perpetual pessimists and, and, and, you know, and when you're, when you're blazing a trail, I mean, kind of like what you're doing, you know, when you're out there, like doing your podcast and doing your thing, there are people who will come to you. They, they want to, you know, they want to start a podcast or they want to, you didn't want to take your time, but they'll take your time. But then they don't take any action, any kind of, you kind of have to discern and figure out which are those kinds of folks. And for me the techniques are just, you know, if you're not serious and committed, I'll help you. But if you're not serious and committed to follow through, then you know, my two to five hours, 10 hours to help [inaudible] is, is something else is time that I could be doing something more productive, if you will.

Tyson: 00:36:21 Right. Yeah. Yeah. No, I hear that. I early on in my life career, whatever you want to call it, I, I was, I would give you so much of my time thinking like this, just if I just, if I just do a little more, you're going to start and you're going to end it now. I make people jump through a lot of hoops before I, I'll take any of my time with them. That weeds out so many people and at least so much time to do the things and not in a selfish way, but I want to be doing that. I need to be doing that. That's going to help other people go, you know, like that, you know, that kind of added, you know, you've got to put your oxygen mask on first. You're not gonna help nobody else if you're not set and ready to go if your timing so drained out. And that's the thing, I drives me crazy all the time. I hear a lot from clients and friends and everybody, you know, I don't have time. No you do. You, if you sat down and looked at all the crap you do all day long, there's a lot of nonsense in there. And to

Lauren: 00:37:09 [Inaudible]

Tyson: 00:37:10 Weed that out and get rid of a lot of that, you really free up a lot of things you can be doing.

Lauren: 00:37:16 Absolutely. And you know, the one thing that I used to say to myself was that, okay, if I care more about you starting X than you care, then that's the wrong balance here. Right? Or I care, you know, I do business consulting and coaching. If I care more about your business than you're willing to put forth, then that's not good. Yeah. Cause this is your deal, not mine. Right, exactly. You have to, you have to figure that out because, and it's not selfish. It's, you know, it's like, how do we, how do you and I impact more people is by being very careful with our time and where we, we put forth our information or gift or genius.

Tyson: 00:38:03 Yeah. No, I, I've gotten that feedback. They're like, Oh, you're just all by yourself. I'm like, okay. It's not that like you just aren't going to do this. I'm tired of spinning my wheels. I've got to move on to something else. And you know, I, I've seen it so many times, you know, like that is the thing I get. I get so involved with these, these businesses and these people and these things and it's like, come on, let's go. Like, you know, I want to see UCM and saying, they're like, there's this thing I was at last night. It's like a, I mean I worked as one client, I mean it was three or four months before he was supposed to open and it was like two or three weeks before it opens up. Oh, I've got to do all this stuff. I'm like, dude, we had this conversation four months ago. You've done nothing since then. And it's like, no, he's like pressing me. I'm like, I don't think so. Like yeah, you was way more important for you to go skiing and all this stuff. Like he was like this bucket list of stuff you want to do before he started his business. And I was like the weirdest thing I've ever seen and I, it was hard for me to cut ties cause I was really invested in, in his vision and what he was trying to accomplish.

Lauren: 00:39:01 [Inaudible] I get that. Totally. I get that. Yup.

Tyson: 00:39:05 How did you, how kind of, I kind of want to track back to this. I'm, I'm very interested in cutting people out of like, I don't know, it sounds weird, but how did you, how did you tackle like closer or maybe not so close friends, family, you know, parsing out the ones that maybe you only wanted to see on the holidays for a short amount of time or something along those lines?

Lauren: 00:39:24 Yeah, I think what I found was it really boiled down to F picking the right words because if I already knew my intention and then I wanted to pull back, I needed to find the right words to say to that individual and, you know, honor them still, you know, honor them, preserve the dignity. But it's kind of like a, you know, you wanted to get together for seven days. But in reality how about we get together for three days? I think that would be more productive for both you and I type thing. And you know, say, not saying that, you know, after the fourth days, through the seventh day, I would be driving, you know, up the wall, if you will. It was just saying, Hey, I think it would be better if we did that in and, and again, finding the right words that it didn't really cut them to the quick cause that doesn't really do anything either. Yeah. I mean it's, you can be too honest, but you also can be, you know, honest [inaudible] intentional with your words and be fair if you will.

Tyson: 00:40:30 Yeah. I'm a too honest guy. I got minds of a lot of trouble and I'm trying to like, I'm trying to help you. Like, listen, this is not happening. Like please just go, move on with your life, move on and stuff. And it's just like, Oh, you're a Dick. And I'm like, hell, I'm really helping you cause you're going to waste a lot of time and I don't care. And I just want to tell you that now and just please, I wish you the best and sincerely just move on. And it's like I get that so much.

Lauren: 00:40:56 Yes. Well, and you know the words that I found, you know, so we all have our art, we find our words or phrases that work for us right. So one of the phrases I used was, you know, that doesn't really work for me. Meaning, you know, if you're like, let's get together for seven days or you know, let's, you know, let's, let's set up a every Friday, let's have coffee and do a masterminding or, or code for Lauren, let me pick your brain rather than pay for you for your expertise. It's like, yeah. And so it was like the, so my phrase was or is, you know, I, that doesn't really work for me. Right. And you know, I'm willing to meet with you for coffee, but if in fact we're really working on your business, then we kind of go on the clock.

Tyson: 00:41:43 Yeah.

Lauren: 00:41:44 Yeah. That's it. You know, it's a code four on that is like, okay, if you're really, do you want to hire me and you want me to work with you on your business? Hey, I'm all in. But you know, free coffee for, you know, every Friday at 8:00 AM yeah. That doesn't work.

Tyson: 00:42:00 No. Yeah. Not worth the six bucks not happening. Yeah. Something I've been using lately, I found it really kind of helps. And I think what it does more than anything, weeds out a lot of people is I just thought, I'm not taking meetings right now. It's not as it were. Yeah. I'm happy to chat with you here. Whatever email or it's usually email or LinkedIn. I kind of try to limit my conversations there. Yeah. And if you really want something, you have something to say. They will message me back. Nine of the 10 times they want to set up this meeting so they can pitch me something, but they're pretending like, you know, and it's like, it really weeds a lot of stuff. It's like I'm just not taking meetings right now and it really helps a lot. And it's just protecting that time. People, you know, if I walk by you on the street and I still have 100 bucks from you, you know, we'd all throw a fit, but if I took an hour of your time, nobody would have nothing to say about it.

Lauren: 00:42:44 I know, I know. I know. And it's like, and what that tells you about those individuals is that they don't value their time. Right, right. Yeah I, you know, I do a speaking paid speaking engagements and I do some free and I will get to my limit where I've done enough free and I will say, you know, I'm not doing any free gigs for, you know, the next few months, you know, let's touch base back yet, you know, three months from now or something like that. There's, and so really the message here is really, it goes back to using the words that you're comfortable with that state your position.

Tyson: 00:43:22 Right. But yeah, that's the thing is figuring that out. Run through a few scenarios, get gave some feedback, stay true to yourself. And they'll fall victim to that peer pressure type thing. It's okay to say no, we've got to, we got to learn a lot. Learn to say no a lot more often than we, a lot of us do.

Lauren: 00:43:39 Yes. Yes, absolutely. Because, and you know, that's exactly one of the premises that's in my productivity book in my workshops is that when you want to say no and what the words that come out of your mouth or yes. And then you have that little voice. I say it's the person that's sitting on my shoulder or in my ear that's like, why did you just say yes when you really wanted to say, you know, like that, you know, that self-talk person that like starts a yammering at you. It's like when that starts happening, you know, you need to pull that yes back and say, you know what? Wait a minute before I say yes, let me get that. Let me look in my calendar. Let me get back to you. Let me think about this. And then you come back and say, you know, it hasn't really worked for me.

Tyson: 00:44:25 Yeah. You know, I find myself doing is I'll commit to something and then, you know, three, six months out, I try not to do to do that too often, but you know, three months on and it's like, okay,

Lauren: 00:44:36 Yeah, you don't have to that. And then two weeks before I'm like, why did I say yes to that thing? Like, I've never really wanted to do this. Do you have any way to help me with that? Well, well, here's the challenge, Tyson, here's what happens is when we think it's three to six months out, you're like, Oh yeah, I could do that, no problem. Time wise. And then when you get to that stage of that time, the three to six months out, when it's really there in front of you, you know, your calendar's full, you're running full out and you're like, you don't have time for that. Right, right. And so, so again, so one way to do that would be to say that, you know, I generally don't book three to six months out, check in with me a couple of months beforehand and let's see what my calendar looks like at that time.

Lauren: 00:45:23 Because the trick we play with ourselves is the fact that we think, you know, three to six months out, Oh yeah. Off time I'll, I'll be, I'll, I'll be wide open, I'll have capacity and or energy. Right. But you know, you know, between now and then a lots could happen in your life that might, you might have a huge opportunity that's all consuming. Right? Right. Yeah. So, so the, you know, the technique that I teach on that is really just say, Hey, you know what, I really don't know that they can commit fully free to six months out, check back with me and you know, kind of figure out the the month, the name of the month and just say, why don't you just touch base back with me in February and let's talk to that. And oftentimes they'll go away meaning or if they're really serious about you doing that for them, they'll come back in February. But most, well not, I like that.

Tyson: 00:46:11 I'll have to, I'll have to implement that I guess. I think it reminded me of, I think it's Warren buffet. He only does something like the next day. Like I said, if you want to talk to him tomorrow, you've got to call him today. Do you have time tomorrow at nine to talk? And that's the only way you can get an appointment on his calendar

Lauren: 00:46:25 And the deal is because he knows this capacity of time for that day. Right, right, right, right, right, right. Versus six months. I'm like, nothing on my calendar. But a dentist appointment. Okay. Yeah. But in the meantime, life happens during those six months. And trust me, your calendar likely will be full of things that you want to do during that period of time. Probably things you should probably be doing instead. Right, right. Yeah, exactly. Yes. So [inaudible] talking to you before, one of the most wonderful things I think that came out of your,

Tyson: 00:46:58 Your cancer thing other than you've survived in your alive and thriving. Is this this card thing you Dickie talk us through that.

Lauren: 00:47:05 Oh my gosh, this was crazy. So the way to set it up here and explain it is that it truly was a personal project that became a business. Like what, how does that happen? So I had this personal project to send out 20 cards a week. [inaudible] People who mattered to me. And my, my little is, we were talking about, you know, like my six week challenge was I wanted to do it for like six weeks, like 30 days, six weeks, and do a 20 [inaudible] 20 cards a week. Could I be disciplined enough to do it? Did I know to 120 people to do it. And so I bought the cards and I sent them out. And the card that I designed, it was a simple, you matter to me and calligraphy and it had a little heart red heart after it on decent stock. [inaudible]

Lauren: 00:47:55 You know, and inside it was blank. So I wrote hand-wrote heartfelt words to these individuals, people that I knew, friends, family just close acquaintances, that type of thing. What I did not expect, Tyson was the response back. I mean, I started getting calls, I started getting texts, I started getting cards back myself and, and I was like, what? You know, but it was, it was like the Supreme connection, meaning it was really, they were like, it was unexpected good. So then this was like in March or April of this year, they're like, you know, it wasn't around a holiday or their birthday or anything like that. And and so it was like, wow, know. First of all, I was like, Lauren, are you okay? You know, like, no, I'm okay. But you know, in my mind, my intent was if I leave this earth tomorrow and I'm not planning to, but if I do, right, there are certain people in my life that I wanted them to know they mattered to me.

Lauren: 00:48:52 Now, some of them I truly loved. Right. But would put that in the words. Right. But there's some people were just, Hey, we were coworkers, there were bosses, there were mentors, they were on this list. And I did have an Excel spreadsheet of who I sent it to you. I would remember, you know, chemo brain. I wouldn't remember it. Yeah. So I did write down who I sent them to and, but it was, I didn't write down in an, I didn't remember all the words I wrote, but I, I sent those out. Then what came back was three questions. One was, Lauren, where can I buy these cars? Hmm. Second question was, I have a retail store. I'd like to sell these cards at my store. And I, I think, you know, mostly it's 120 people. No, I'm pretty enterprising and an entrepreneur. So they probably figured that I already had started the business, which I hit that it was just a personal project.

Lauren: 00:49:40 Right? So anyway, so the third question was, Hey, if you have these cards, could you ship me 20 a month? And I said, kinda like BarkBox. You know, where you open it up, you don't feel like it is like, here's some, you matter to me stuff. I'm like, Oh my gosh. So I started thinking about this. I was like, okay, there might be a little business here. So, and there was, and so in July I began working with my [inaudible] graphic artist, graphic designer, and my web designer. And I said, you know, let's throw up a website, you know, simple five pages, you know, here's the tabs. I can do some blogs, I can write a couple of eBooks and, you know, let's feature the cards. And the graphic designer, she helped me find, you know, the vendor and all of that to buy the cards and to, you know, kind of be in business.

Lauren: 00:50:29 Along with that, what I did, Tyson was I then expanded the circle. And here's the [inaudible] reality. We all have a circle of people we know. We just don't think about how big it is, but it is, it's big generally if we're out there as entrepreneurs or even just anybody. So I sent out, you know, a marketing letter and I'm just, it was just kind of an update on Lauren, here's a letter, here's a blank card and this is what I'm doing. And Oh, by the way, here's the website. And from that, and that was the end of August. So right now we're kind of in the middle of November and almost at the end of November. So we're about three months into it for September, October and November. And I've recouped the investment. I've sold thousands of cards and and it, it, to me, it's just one of those things. You put it out there and people that want to send out cards that matter [inaudible] to those that matter to them are going to do it. Some people get it, some people look at it and like, Oh, that's nice. They kind of move on.

Tyson: 00:51:31 Yeah, yeah, I did something. Ah, that's fine. It's fine. I love the story and it's a great the thing. And those are, those are always like, I think the best little businesses that come out of these pasture projects is nothing. You expected nothing from me. You didn't sit around brainstorming of how can I make $1 million this weekend? And it just, it was just something that people just gravitated towards. I did something similar. I was doing the challenge and, but one of the challenges was to send our thank you cards and I was like, no, I was not having that. I was like, I'm not, I'm not, I'm just gonna skip this challenge. And of course I'm like, well this is making me uncomfortable. I've got to go do this. And I must have sat on that for months. One, I put it on my calendar to go, go get some cards.

Tyson: 00:52:21 And I pushed that back a few weeks, maybe a month or so. And then I finally go get some thank you cards. I spent whole, God knows how much time debating that, I guess think cards and I set them on my desk and they sat there for probably, I don't know how many weeks. So I was like, you know, I gotta I just gotta stop this and just get over this crap. And I just, I just, I just got I just got 10 people, Brian's family and stuff and they're just thank you cards. And so I just, you know, thank you for being a friend. Thank you for bringing my brother, thank you for being whatever. And I just wrote something just real quick and I put them in a little bit, maybe cost me five bucks, mate, maybe the send everything out and not even the hour of my time. And the messages I got back were just amazing. I mean, I mean, you know, it was, Hey, thanks, whatever. You know, I appreciate it. You know, to this really like you don't believe the crappy weeks I've been having and just to know you're thinking about me and you're out there, it's just like dang. Like wow. Like, I never ever would have thought of that. Like I said, it took me 15, 20 minutes maybe to just brighten up 10 people's days in such an unexpected

Lauren: 00:53:25 Yes. That's exactly it. That's exactly it. And it's like, how then can we discipline ourselves to just do it on a routine basis? Because the reality is we run across people on a day to day basis that we could think that treated us well, took care of us, you know you know, the barista where we get our coffee, she's always there, always pot, you know, that kind of it, we just don't think about it. One of the guys that I know, he did it, he did a thank you note project and he had some thank you notes, neat. Flew from [inaudible] Dallas just somewhere and he walked up past the pilots, you know, when you're getting off the plane. Yeah. And you're like, you know, thank you for, you know, the, you know, whatever. And he handed both of these pilots. It's a little thank you note.

Lauren: 00:54:11 And, and, and the pilot was like, we've never gotten that before, but do you know, you just, it's like, it's such a simple act of kindness at the human level. Hey, yeah, we got to it is, is like I get people to say, Oh well yeah, but you know, Lauren, it's so old fashioned. Right. And I was like, okay, well first of all, I'm a bit old so you know, it's all right kind of fence. Right. But it was kind of like, but it's not, it's, it's, it's adds to all the other things that we do. Be it Facebook messenger, we reach out to somebody, we connect LinkedIn, we connect with them. It's just a different way of connecting. You'll be glad to know since we last talked, I have been speaking, I actually added a couple of keynotes to my little repertoire and the title of it is the art of connecting with those who matter.

Lauren: 00:55:04 Awesome. Yeah. And you know, it's, and I'll tell you when I've done it, I had this one group of women recently is about two or three weeks ago and there's one woman who started crying cause they were talking, I'm not trying to get you to cry, but it was, I was just talking about are there some people in our lives that we need to reconnect with that we haven't, we've thought about they're on our mind and back to our earlier conversation, maybe we distanced from one another and you know, time is past and you know, maybe we need to reconnect with that person. So whatever I was saying trigger her to think about this one person and then just tears and I'm like, Oh my God. You know. But it was like we all have that in our lives. Right. It's a basic level, right?

Lauren: 00:55:51 Yeah, definitely. I think the power in these, in these cards and mailing something and in handwriting it, it cuts through all the noise and it lets people know that you took a little extra time to sit there and hand write it and put a stamp on it and mail it out versus you don't have auto predicting your sentence anyway, you know, and AI driven. I think there's something to that is some power there. Right. Well, and I think at a deeper level, if I could rephrase what you're saying because think this is a powerful point, is that the relationship that I have with you was worth my effort to put the words on the paper. It, because if I, you know, you know, like I couldn't send to you unless I knew you. Now I do. But you know, a, you matter to me with the little heart on the end.

Lauren: 00:56:44 I couldn't send that to you unless you and I really did have a relationship, you know, at a human level. Right. and so it kind of sorts things out or thank you. I mean, you're not going to send a thank you to somebody who you don't have any words to say or to thank them for. Right. And so it just really the, the thing that it kind of cuts through all of it is just say, saying the relationship I have with you. It's worth the effort that I took. [inaudible] W I'm happy to do that effort.

Tyson: 00:57:14 Definitely. Yeah. I love it. I love that little thing you have going on. Have you had any luck bringing this? I know you're told, we're talking about spreading this a little bit more into that into the cancer realm and stuff. Have you had luck with that yet?

Lauren: 00:57:25 I have not. Totally. I've had, I'm, I'm making some strides making some contacts to getting into that. My, my mission for 2020 is, and it's a big mission, but I, and I won't quite fulfill it, but I'll, I'll get there. Partly part of the way is I would love to have these cards in every oncology clinic in this country. So that those cancer patients who are sitting there thinking about, am I going to make it or not? That gives them the opportunity to take those cards and just write 'em out to the people who matter to them and and let them, you know, just access them for free. So either I need the oncology clinic to buy them or a sponsorship. And so just I'm, I'm working on it, which is, you know, it's, as you know, when you started the podcast, Tyson, you had an idea and you had a thought and what you wanted to do and this is that for me. So we all start with a thought, an idea, and then, you know, we've got to execute on it. Right. but it's got to start with the, the dream, the idea of the thought before we can take action.

Tyson: 00:58:29 You know, I'd like to, I'd like to take some action on this. I'd like to donate sponsor a hundred dollars worth of cards for you to go out and give to somebody.

Lauren: 00:58:35 Well, thank you. I will take that. I will take that.

Tyson: 00:58:38 Well, could I get offline and we'll, we'll set that up.

Lauren: 00:58:41 Okay. Awesome. I appreciate that. That's awesome.

Tyson: 00:58:43 No problem. I love what you're doing. I think, like I said, there's a lot of, pardon, I never, I never realized it until recently and I'd like to, I think we can keep spreading this and I think it's going to be great, especially people in that position of that moment of unexpected life reflection that's just happened upon you. Yes. To reach other people. Maybe it is your last moment. You know, a lot of us, you know, even though we are healthy and maybe not going into that, they can be your last day too. Absolutely. Absolutely. A lot of people don't wake up every day. And you never know. And we gotta we got to keep that in mind. You know, the things we do with the things we say and just live in that way of, you know, this could be my last day, like how am I going to live? How am I going to do, am I going to tell the people I love and care about? You know, that,

Lauren: 00:59:29 Right. And it really just, it just the spreading of the love and kindness. And so whether it's a thank you card, whether it's my card, whether it's another card, just a blank note card, you know, just that it's a standout factor for individuals to do that. And ultimately when you do it, you do become known. You know, I mean the people that you sent the thank you cards to, they're probably not going to forget that.

Tyson: 00:59:52 No, I don't think so. It's made an impression on me and I wasn't even trying to do that.

Lauren: 00:59:57 Yeah. Right. Cause you touched them, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was the feedback that you got and it was sincere you, even since you were really sincere about it. So, so I appreciate you bringing that up and giving me the opportunity to talk about it.

Tyson: 01:00:11 That definitely, I, like I said, I just love what's going on and I found the power in it and I love that you have the ability to push that forward. What else unexpected thing has come from this that you didn't, you could never foreseen.

Lauren: 01:00:23 [Inaudible] Mmm. I would say the, that's a great question. I would say the ability to have a deeper connection with someone than what I had expected is it opened the door to do that. Meaning, you know, and I would say sometimes we have in life, I call him [inaudible] surfacy conversations and they're, okay, that's how we get by and Hey, how are you doing? How was, how was your weekend? Did you like the game? You know, it's very surface-y stuff. But ultimately there's times where we do need to have a deeper conversation. And so I think there's people that have I've connected with in a deeper way than what I had actually ever thought could happen. And to me that just kind of fills my soul, feeds my soul, if you will. And it just, it a source of interest energy and her motivation.

Lauren: 01:01:23 [Inaudible] I dunno, it just, I think that was, that was kind of the unexp I didn't realize that it would go as deep as it would. And it's a great conversation starter as well as I meet people and talk to people. So it's kind of cool from that standpoint. Mmm. And you know, here's the crazy thing was I found different now, now that they're out there now that people are buying them, they're coming back to me and telling you, well, here's how I use them. And you know, and I love that because you know how, you know, accumulating those stories. And this one guy that I had worked with years ago, he's in South he's in South Jersey and he bought a whole bunch of them any, and I knew that he wasn't going to be writing these cards. So I said, well, what are you going to be used them for? And he said, you know, I bought them so that I could donate them to my pastor at my church because we have some amazing volunteers who do extraordinary things for the church. And I just want this pastor to have these, his fingertips so that he can, and as you said, doesn't take very long, write them out and hand them to those volunteers. And I'm like, know, like it's like stories like that are like, Oh, that's awesome.

Tyson: 01:02:30 Amazing. And that's one of the things that you just never could dream up. You can never market them and push it that way. And it's, Oh, it's just, I just so beautiful. I love this story. I don't know why. It's just something, it's something I think mr. Robot this, I just love it. Mmm.

Lauren: 01:02:46 I was going to ask you something else and I totally forgot. Well, it feeds us, it feeds us at the basic level. I mean, it's like, you know, it's not, it's, it's a [inaudible]. It's just a feel good story, I guess type thing.

Tyson: 01:02:57 Mm. Yeah. What, what's some, what's some good ways people can, can start to build these deeper connections, you know, like that, that first step from the hi. Hello. How are you doing to, to taking that next step into a deeper relationship?

Lauren: 01:03:11 Well, first of all, I think it's, you know, you've got to, you have to have an idea as to who is let's call it in your circles, if you will. This is part of my keynote and what I talk about it is we have that really close in our circle. We have that one person who's our, our rock that we, you know, spouse, best friend, whatever, whoever that might be. But we have an inner circle of maybe, I don't know, eight to 12 people, something like that. Just really good friends. They know you, they love you. And you know, the next level of circle, you know, maybe another 15, 20 people, I S I say they know your story, they know your stuff code for another word, right? And they know your heart. Right? and then, you know, if you move out from the, you know, the, or acquaintances from there, you know, they might be your, what I call your 2:00 PM friends, somebody 2:00 PM and yeah, Hey, let's go, you know, grab lunch or a beer or you know, a cup of coffee or whatever.

Lauren: 01:04:05 Inner circle. Those are the 2:00 AM friends or family. Right? and so it's like knowing who's what, circle, who's in what circle, if you will first, but then intentionally I think you've gotta be vulnerable, vulnerable enough to say, you know, it's been a while since I've really had a [inaudible] conversation connection with person. Ah, and I think it's intentionality. I think it's, that's the word of just saying, you know, next time that I see Tyson, I need to just, you know, I need to be vulnerable enough myself. Right. Open up to him. And I know, you know, based on our years of history used to work together, you know, whatever that, you know, at least you know, that when we walk away from that interaction that we've had a deep human conversation

Tyson: 01:04:53 And it's gotta be genuine unimagined too. Right? I mean, you can't,

Lauren: 01:04:57 No, no, but I think you have to decide for yourself because that other person is not, you know, they're not, they may or may not do it, but if I believe that once one person opens up, so the other person, generally it's reciprocity kind of comes back,

Tyson: 01:05:13 If that makes sense. Yeah, no, definitely. Definitely. Definitely. Are you into habits

Lauren: 01:05:18 And routines is something you you're into? Yeah. Yeah. I've got some, yeah, I do some, but there's some like I wish I was a little bit more disciplined to do more.

Tyson: 01:05:29 D D did, is there maybe a morning, a morning thing you do like maybe a little setup, you get into a little thing, you ritual you do before you get to [inaudible]

Lauren: 01:05:39 Working or anything like that. I do that, I do that. So in the mornings I generally will. Right. And I generally will read. So I'm a big reader and I, as you can see by the books behind me, it's just a small crib. But I ate, I what feeds my soul in the morning truly is coffee, getting some coffee and, but then I like to write and I write a bit and you know, it could be journaling or it could be, you know, something that's on my mind. My mind is pretty clear at that point. And then I do like to read hello. You know, and again, some uplifting or whatever, you know, self-help or whatever it might be. What's your ritual? What's your ritual? I like to get up in the morning and I like to meander for a bit. That's a good word. Yeah. I just, I don't know.

Tyson: 01:06:27 I get up at six and I kind of just, I sit around for a little bit. And then I, and I've kind of started, I don't know, maybe it takes me like 15 minutes, just kind of like all these things popping in with going through my head. I go, ah, I get some coffee and then I'll, I'll usually read some things and then I meditate and then kind of just get my, that kind of gets my day going. Maybe about two hours in the morning. I just really keep to myself and just the things I want to be doing and before I kind of go off and do my things.

Lauren: 01:06:54 And you know what? Here's my thinking on that. Tyson, I love your routine. My thinking is, is that if somebody is struggling or having, let's say they're stuck, they're not sure they're, or they're wandering around in life a little bit lost, not sure how to, what's, you know, what's the priorities are. To me, the first place to start is to figure out a morning routine that they need to figure out what serves them. Because if you, if you do figure out that routine, you stick to it. Generally, you feel good about the day and you kind of get it off onto the right foot and the right start, you know? So if I work with a client that's kind of, that's the, one of the questions that I do ask is what's your morning routine? Because if it's haphazard, then we kind of work on that and get a little bit more.

Lauren: 01:07:44 And, and again there's a gosh, I'm trying to think of the guy's name. It'll come to me, but he has a, a blog out there called like, you know, five to 7:00 AM and he, and he, and he believes, you know, getting up at five. I'm not so much a fan of getting up at five, I'm a 6:00 AM person like you, but it's kind of like, but he was like [inaudible] figure out two hours that, you know, whatever those two hours are, whenever you have to, you know, before you have to be at work what will serve you in those two hours, you know, whether it's working out, meditating, reading, all of that [inaudible] and do it. And I think, I think you're right on with the two hours. It really does kind of set the stage for you because it may be the end, it may be the only time you get of the day, you know, especially those that have kids, you know, or older parents or something like that, you know? Yeah,

Tyson: 01:08:33 Yeah. And that's the thing, that's part of why I get up at six. Usually. my kids are still sleeping, so there's a little bit of a time where it's just quiet. It's pitch black, dark in my room. And it's just like, as soon as I wake up, my brain is like, fricking million things are just buzzing through my head. And I just need to get the break to just sit. And I'm a new thing I've been doing also is not turning my phone on. Like I go to bed, I turn my phone off and then it try to at least they live in about an hour before I turn my phone on. And it's usually, cause I,

Lauren: 01:09:06 My wife's,

Tyson: 01:09:07 I'm waiting for my wife to text me cause she's, she needs me for something. But that's been really, really helpful. And then just, just sitting there and kind of just relaxing and then, and then, then, and then they leave. And then that's the, there's a probably about half an hour, 45 minutes where the kids are around and, but when they leave, that's what I do, my meditation and am I doing my other things and I just, if I don't, if something interrupts that time, it really sets my day up just for failure.

Lauren: 01:09:32 Yeah. Yeah.

Tyson: 01:09:34 I just wander around the house and I just want, I work from home, so it's so easy to just get distracted with stuff. But yeah, it's just if I, if I set that up and I just knock those down, the rest of the day just flows. I just knocked the to do lists out and it's, yeah, it's really, and, but it's about protecting that time and, and understanding that time. And I hear a lot of people, I don't have time for that really. You do, like if you went to bed an hour earlier, you got up an hour that you could get a lot, eat lots of time.

Lauren: 01:10:01 So I have a mantra. My mantra is a, be intentional, do less and live more. But it starts with being intentional and it just like, you know, back to what you're talking about earlier until you do it, do a seven day challenge. Can you do, you know, like a couple of hours and set, you know, begin the routine and if that seven day worked out well, do another son that, you know. Yeah. But it's like we don't know what we could do until we get intentional about it.

Tyson: 01:10:29 Yeah. It's my wife. She's been interested lately in meditating and firstly he's telling us, I don't know, 10 minutes for this. Like then you need a half an hour after she realized like, okay, that was pretty silly that I, and then she'd been doing, she's like, all right, this is good stuff. Like I don't know why I've been fighting this on so time and, but yeah, setting that thing and understanding

Lauren: 01:10:51 Know, yeah. [inaudible]

Tyson: 01:10:53 It seems trivial, but it's just like, it's just 10 minutes or whatever. Like I was with my trainer last week, my, he was stretching my leg and it was so sore and all I could tell myself was I couldn't do this for 30 seconds. It's just 30 seconds. I can do anything for 30 seconds. And you're splitting that up in your head and realizing that

Lauren: 01:11:12 You don't know. And what you're in that moment is you're really training your brain

Tyson: 01:11:16 [Inaudible]

Lauren: 01:11:16 You know, you're training your brain like, I can do this, I can do this. [inaudible] And you're just taking it in bite sized pieces. I can do this. And eventually then, Oh my gosh, it was five minutes, right? The 30 minute and 32nd increments, right?

Tyson: 01:11:28 Yeah. You're building that up, building that muscle in your brain, building that thing, understanding your limits, like this hurt and it's, that's her natural action. Like this hurts this, whatever, whatever hurts is for you. [inaudible] You just want to stop. But it's like, can I, can I push through this? Like I I had to take cold showers and do cold punches. I got to it and I got my son, he's, he'll be nine in a couple of days and I, I've taught him to do it and he's like, you can do this for 30 seconds. Right? He's like, Whoa, yeah. [inaudible] But teaching him that power of that, it just, just content, seconds, you know, and then we can stop and then next time we can do more. And that really has trained him to have that muscle. Like, yeah, I can do this. It's just 30 seconds, just a minute. And you should keep extrapolating that time out and show it's an hour, you know?

Lauren: 01:12:11 I love that. I love that.

Tyson: 01:12:12 It's really fun. Is there any habits that you've added or removed from your, your days or life recently?

Lauren: 01:12:19 I think one of the habits that I have added is the Mmm. The just being intentional with my writing and and well that's one of them. And the second one is, since I really want to spend more time on this card business, I've taken my five day work [inaudible] and I've separated it out so that, you know, there's a couple of days that are like extreme focus days on the cards and then extreme focus days on the productivity consulting and speaking. So I've kind of separated that out and it goes back to intentionality cause what I was finding was that I was mixing, it was like start, stop, start, stop mixing it all together. And you know, when I do focus days then it's kinda like if an idea pops in my head on the card business, I, you know, and it's Monday and I wasn't really gonna work on that until Wednesday. I just jot it down, put it in the Wednesday, you know page and then, you know, deal with it on Wednesday and come back to it rather than get distracted. So that was kind of one of the things that I've added into the calendar and it's really been working well from that standpoint. So

Tyson: 01:13:28 Yeah, no, I've done, I, I've done something similar recently too where I theme I theme a few days of the week. So like Mondays for me, the theme is learning, you know, whatever courses are challenged or whatever different things I'm doing. [inaudible] And what I noticed is I don't feel guilty when I'm doing that on, you know, I used to just do that whenever I felt like it and I'd be like, Oh, I'm, I'm doing this class now, but I really shouldn't be doing. And I would feel guilty about it and I'm like, it's Monday. It's learning. It doesn't matter what's happening as long as there's no fires going on in my email or anything like that, it's just all about learning. That's what I do. I can just ask Apple Monday. That's just the theme and it's so freeing and I don't have that guilt anymore of, of continuing my learning education.

Lauren: 01:14:10 I love, I love that because

Tyson: 01:14:12 If you want to read, if you want to wander around on the internet and look at, you know, you're on a particular topic and you're looking for what are all of the articles or blogs that had been written on this or YouTube or whatever. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. I'll stack up a stack of budget things up and like it's the paper or something like that or whatever. Different places. And then when it comes Monday though, here's my time and I'm just gonna read through all this stuff. I'm going to read through all these different things I've collected. It's, I cannot, I just can't express how freeing it feels. It's just really weird. Yup.

Lauren: 01:14:40 Yup. And again, you're training your brain though. You're saying, you're saying it's okay not to learn on Wednesday cause you're going to catch it in the next Monday and, and so you, you're, you allow your brain to release it and not get distracted by it. Right. But you're training your brain. It's like, okay, we've got this on Monday, don't worry about it.

Tyson: 01:14:59 Yeah. Yeah. And I've also kind of noticed that I would use those as crutches to procrastinate as, as you know, I'm going to do this thing cause I really don't feel like this for whatever reason. And, and, and that's also I think helped me as well.

Lauren: 01:15:11 Yeah. That's cool. Alright. What else have you added or dropped?

Tyson: 01:15:16 That is the thing I definitely added recently. I don't in fact have dropped anything. I'm constantly trying things and they don't stick after a week or something like that. I'll try stuff for a week and if it doesn't stick out, it just isn't, I'll come back to maybe later if something I really wanna do. Meditation is the one I really, I really like to do and I seem to do like every other week. Excuse me. The thing I tend to do I can't, other than that, I can't really think of it. That's the newest thing I've added is that theming, I'm still working through the kinks of it. Monday. I've really settled down on that and that's really been fun. I'm usually, I do podcasting's throughout the rest of the week other business stuff. But yeah, I don't, I can't really think of it. I was thinking this morning that I w starting in the new year, I want to write a little bit more. I really suck at writing, so I was thinking about just once a month putting out some, some writing piece. So something I want to try and add in.

Lauren: 01:16:17 Yeah. Oh, our capture all those wonderful thoughts that you're getting in your brain in the morning.

Tyson: 01:16:22 Yeah, I got to, I got to know Pat on that bed as soon as I wake up and I, if I have any weird fears, write them down real quick and I'll look at it like a week later I'd be like, what was I thinking about? Somethings I have no idea. But nevertheless, where where people want to learn more about your coaching and consulting and your, your cards, where can people get ahold of you?

Lauren: 01:16:45 Two sites. One is Lauren midgley.com for the consulting and the productivity. I've got my blog there and I'll be launching my blog or excuse me, my productivity podcast in December. And then the cards are, yes, you matter most.com.

Tyson: 01:17:05 Perfect. And I will link to all that in the show notes for everybody as well as your, your your social media is that whatever way people want to get in touch with you. So it's easy for it. Don't, don't worry folks, we don't have to rush and write that down. On a social community show, we like to do a weekly challenge to, to challenge the listeners. Either some, ideally we've talked about or some concept that's, you know, near and dear to you. I'd like to give you the challenge this week to challenge the listeners for something for the week. What do you think this week's challenge should be?

Lauren: 01:17:34 [Inaudible] Well, I love your challenge of the, let's, let's do a seven day challenge where you send some sort of handwritten Nope, whatever card out to seven people that matter to you and see what happens and see if your experience is similar to Tyson's. But think about who are the seven people, right? Those heartfelt words, as Tyson said, I think it will take you max an hour to do those seven cards if that. Probably not even that and maybe five or 10 bucks by the time you do the postage and the cards.

Tyson: 01:18:10 Perfect. I love the challenge. Let's go folks get there. It's simple. You can have the head of her, her website, you guys can go to Walmart, Amazon. There's all kinds of things. It's really simple. Trust me, I went down the journey of fascinating through that. Is there anything else that you want to share, express to the people out there that we didn't get a chance to talk about here?

Lauren: 01:18:29 You know, I, the only thing I would like to just kind of say as closing words is that when we have to communicate at [inaudible] a we have to connect at a human level and just find ways, small ways to do that in your day, be intentional about it. It can happen and it, your life will be immeasurably better by doing so.

Tyson: 01:18:52 That's beautiful. We're all, we're all human beings. We're all neighbors, friends, brothers, sisters, cousins. Yeah. Let's take care of each other.

Lauren: 01:18:57 Right.

Tyson: 01:18:58 Lauren, thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure. I love all your stories and everything you up to, like I said, folks, the show notes, you can find out the social media show, everything we talked about. Her links, everything. If you want to get a hold of her, we'll, we'll be there for you guys.

Lauren: 01:19:10 Thanks Tyson.

Tyson: 01:19:11 What a great interview with Lauren. Thanks everybody for sticking around. I'll quick couple of things before we get out of here. Don't forget, we always are trying to do some type of giveaway giving back to you guys in whatever different way, whether it's, you know, books, services, products, whatever it is. Head over to the social media.show/pick me. See what we've got going on this month. I think it's coming on in January, so you know what w maybe we can work some, some new year's things or whatever it is. Go see what we got going on all year long. Social community dot shows I should pick me and, and see, see what's happening. See what we can do in, we have there to help you guys out. This show has been help. If you like Lauren's message, if you want to send us, you know, some people talk about it and you know, amongst yourselves and what your friends may have, a little watch party or something that share this.

Tyson: 01:19:58 That's the best way to help the show. Have you liked what we've got going on here? Leave it like a review. Yeah, ideas. They for things for show that is no, we're always happy to hear and in between shows, you guys can connect with us at the social community show on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Also, don't forget to subscribe on YouTube if you want to see the video version or your favorite podcast app and probably listening to the scene right now for past episodes and links to everything we've talked about in his episode, you can head to a social chameleon doc show. Until next time, keep learning, keep growing and keep transforming into the person you want to become.