The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 418 - The Witch

Transcript:

Jen: Hello, Peter.

Pete: Hello, Jen.

Jen: I recently had an experience where, in literally an instant, my entire view of a scenario was changed (like, in the blink of an eye), because someone offered me a perspective and mindset shift. And I want to talk about it because the power of our human minds to help us through things is really extraordinary. And I need to talk about it.

Pete: Wow. Alright, alright. I love those moments where everything you thought you knew changes forever, based on a very brief encounter. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Pete: Okay, what happened? What happened, what happened?

Jen: Remember a couple weeks ago, I told you that some mom friends and I were going to go see a witch? Do you remember this?

Pete: Oh my gosh, I do. Is this the sequel?

Jen: It's not a sequel to the exact same story, but it is the same witch.

Pete: Oh my god, I want to know what happened.

Jen: Okay. So, my mom friends and I didn't end up doing that. We couldn't coordinate schedules.

Pete: By the way, so classic of adults. Like, "We're going to do this thing." "It's too hard. Schedules are impossible."

Jen: Right. But I did take the name and number of this extraordinary woman, and I made an appointment with my daughter to go see her as we were gearing up to go back to school. This is going to require a little bit of context, but listeners, just stick with me because I think it's worth it.

Pete: I'm on the edge of my seat.

Jen: So, my daughter and I go to see Lydia at The Copper Rose. And the reason I'm saying her name and the name of her business is because I believe she also offers these services online. And she is actually extraordinary and so intuitive and so connected to something beyond the earth that we are standing on that it is shocking. Like, in the first minute, my jaw was on the floor at how seen I felt by her.

Pete: Alright.

Jen: Okay. So anyway, she was asking me if there was anything in particular that I wanted insight on. So, as I've mentioned on this show, my studio lease is ending at the end of September. What I don't know that I've mentioned is that one of the reasons I'm moving is because my building was involved in a bankruptcy filing. There are new owners. The previous owner allegedly, to be determined, you know, officially in some sort of legal capacity, stole my security deposit.

Pete: Oh my god.

Jen: Which is well over $20,000 American dollars.

Pete: Jesus.

Jen: So, this is what I bring to Lydia. And I'm saying like, "This is a very challenging time for me. I had planned to be in this space for two more years, so that I'd be exiting the lease at the same time I'm dropping my daughter off at college. And like, the whole fresh start starts at the same time. And now, this has happened. And this is so stressful. And like, how could this person have done this? And so, that's my point of view. That's my perspective. My mindset is that I have been wronged. And this is terrible."

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: And she says, "This is protection from your angels." And I go, "Come again? Like, this is protection from my angels? Like, a guy stole over $20,000 from me...and this is protection from my angels?" And she was like, "Well, you just told me that your original intention was to leave in September of 2028, after you drop your daughter off at college. Is that the moment you want to learn that someone stole $20,000 from you?"

Pete: Wow. She's fast.

Jen: And like, in an instant, I was like, "Oh my god. Having this information now is the best thing that could possibly happen to me." Like, it lifted the entire burden off my shoulders. Now, I know that was a whole five-minute setup to get to the main idea. But, Pete, I haven't stopped thinking about it. Because it's the power of the perspective shift to completely alter the issue you see in front of you, like from a very practical standpoint. But then, it's the emotional impact of the perspective shift. So, I'm in this mode right now of like catching myself when the way I have framed something as causing me the problem, and like really actively trying to see it from a different this-is-your-angels perspective.

Pete: I love how fast she did that, by the way.

Jen: Oh my god. It was wild.

Pete: Like, to clock the daughter and two years...okay. Yeah, that's impressive how quick she is. Yeah. And I mean, to me, I wrote down like, "the reframe". The power of a reframe to help you see that a thing that you're telling yourself a story about as being horrendous or negative or annoying or constraining could actually be a gift, could actually be the best thing that ever happened. And I go to (obviously) questions, when I think about scenarios like this. And, you know, if you had have laid that out to someone else and they had have asked you the question of like, "How could this be a gift?" You might have got somewhere, I think.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: "How could this be exactly what you need right now?" You can use that to help you and someone else get some sort of different perspective on it. And then, there's like the other version of this, which is when someone just puts the reframe right in front of you.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: And you go, "Oh, shit. That's interesting. That's interesting. I think I do: Can you help someone reframe it through a question? And I like the idea of at the right time, for the right person, with the right piece of information, you can actually do that for someone.

Jen: Yeah. Because I think I was in a state around this where, if you had asked me, "What is the gift in this," I would have tried to answer the question, but I don't think I would have actually come up with this answer, which was the answer I needed.

Pete: Yeah, that's interesting. Not to dismiss that coming up with something yourself isn't useful, because I think in certain contexts it's super useful. But yeah, I just like that in some contexts, actually, it's more useful for someone to go, "Here is the gift I see in it for you." And you go, "Oh, wow, I've never seen it that way before."

Jen: Yeah. And my daughter, I won't tell her whole story...maybe someday she'll come on the podcast and talk about her experience with Lydia. But she had a similar experience, where she left there and she said, "I think my life changed today." It was wild. And yes, this person has a gift that she is using in service of others in such a beautiful, beautiful way. And I do not believe she is the only person who is able to shift perspective for people, and that we do have the power to do this for ourselves. But we have to catch the moments when, at least for myself, I can be sort of stubborn and rigid when I take a perspective. I have to really fight to let it go. And it has made me a lot more aware of how frequently I do that.

Pete: Yeah, we all do it a lot. I mean, it reminds me of that heuristic or mental model that Claire Hughes Johnson talks about in her book, Scaling People, which she learned from someone else. (I can't remember who.) And she talks about victim versus player. And she's talking about this very much in the context of working in corporates and teams and with people that you find that you come across. Well, actually, she talks about the fact that we all straddle this at some point, depending on who we are and what we're doing, that it's easy to go into a victim mindset of like, "This is happening to me. And it isn't my fault. And so, woe is me." Which is sort of removing any autonomy and capacity to do something about it. Versus the player of it all, which is, "This is happening. And here's how I'm responding or here's what I'm choosing to do about it." She has a bunch of funny examples. Like if you ask a young child, if I asked Ollie, "Where is your hat," and he would say like, "The hat is at daycare." Like, it's the hat's fault and he's the victim. As opposed to like, "I left the hat at daycare." So, there's like an ownership and accountability in stepping into these kinds of challenging circumstances when we feel like we're pulled to being the victim. I feel like it's, where is your agency? Like, how have you got some agency in this? Which is slightly different to your situation, but I think parallels.

Jen: Yeah. This is reminding me of...I wish I could remember the specifics. Maybe this will ring a bell for you, Pete. There was a study done with hospital workers in the Boston area, I believe, where they were asking people on the custodial staff to describe their jobs. And then, to also describe their level of fulfillment from their jobs. And the people who described the tasks, like, you know, "I clean the floor. I wash the windows. I take out the trash," we’re reporting a lower level of fulfillment. And people who were able to reframe the tasks as like, "I'm making patients more comfortable in their rooms. Or I'm helping families be in places where they feel safe," like those people, of course, were experiencing a higher level of fulfillment. And it's the same tasks seen from two different perspectives. And those two perspectives are impacting the quality of life.

Pete: Right. That that person lives.

Jen: Right.

Pete: Yeah. I love this so much. There's so many examples. So, Brené Brown talks about going into an organization and doing some work around their culture and their values. And it was a hospital. And I can't remember the name of the hospital. I have to find it and put this story in the Box O' Goodies. But the way I remember the story is she hops in the lift and there's, you know, a lady there with like the trolley full of food. And Brené says like, "Oh, what do you do here?" And the lady, without missing a beat, is like, "Oh, I cure cancer." And Brené's like, "Oh, okay." And this is a hospital where they're obviously treating cancer patients. And then, she's in the staff room later that day. And, you know, there's someone else, I think it's like maybe the janitor or like someone who doesn't necessarily look like a doctor. And she says like, "What do you do here?" And she's like, "Oh, I help cure cancer." And it was like this mission that was baked into the culture of this organization, that people believe, "Yes, I might be the person that brings the food around on the trolley to patients. But that's in service of helping people cure cancer." And I just was like, the power of that reframe changes how they would show up to work. If I show up to work going, "Oh, I just have to deliver food today," versus, "I'm helping cure cancer," it's like a totally different perspective on how you show up.

Jen: Wow. Yeah.

Pete: So then, I go to like some of my favorite reframes. We've talked about them on various episodes of this podcast. We could probably list hundreds. But there's a couple of...like one of the reframes that started this entire podcast, at least for me, is like imposter syndrome. And I learned so much about this from Seth Godin and others, where one might think imposter syndrome is a bad thing and a negative. And it's something to avoid because I feel like a fraud, and so I, therefore, don't have enough confidence to do something. And Seth helped me see that maybe imposter syndrome is a good thing. And maybe it's actually a sign that you're doing something worth doing, because it means you're growing into territory you've not been before. And isn't that not the point of having a growth mindset? So much so that I went and did a TED Talk about it, because I think the way you think about imposter syndrome changes the way you show up when you feel it.

Jen: Right.

Pete: There's also the like, you know, The Beautiful Constraint of it all...one of our favorite books, that we've mentioned a million times and put in the Box O' Goodies a million times. And I mean, the title is, in and of itself, a reframe. That constraints are beautiful, not things to avoid and limit our capacity to do things. But one of my favorites from that is the "can't, because" versus the "can, if". So often, we go, "I can't start that business, because I don't have $3 million of venture capital back funding," versus, "I can start that business, if I bootstrap it. Okay, I'm going to go start trying to bootstrap it." So it's like, the way you frame the same thing completely changes what you do about it.

Jen: Right.

Pete: And then, there's the one...I think I got this from my friend Lauren, who talked about that she's at the stage of life where she's got three kids. And on a Saturday, it's like her and her husband are driving to fifteen different sporting activities. And it's like absolute chaos. And at one point, they were having a conversation about, you know, how it's so hard and they have to do this every Saturday. And her husband said something like, "What if we changed it to, 'We get to do this,' as opposed to, 'We have to do this.'" And she's like, it was this moment that you described, this light bulb went off in her head, where she goes, "Yeah. What a gift that I get to go and watch my son play soccer." And just that those two words completely changed her Saturday.

Jen: Right.

Pete: So, I just am obsessed with reframes. Hopefully, this entire podcast is chock full of reframes, which is why I love it so much. I love doing it with you, because you help me see things from different perspectives all the time.

Jen: Yeah, it really is so powerful. And it's not at the expense of reality. That's the thing that I'm so into. There's nothing pollyanna about adopting a different and still true perspective.

Pete: Right. It's so important to say that, for sure.

Jen: It's very empowering to realize you have the capability to do that for yourself. And also, just as like a friend, as a coach, as a parent, it's empowering to know that you might have the ability to help someone else shift their mindset when they need it and when they're open to it.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: Okay. Then, I want to offer up one other thing of the many, many, many things we got from Lydia, at The Copper Rose.

Pete: Please, please, please, please.

Jen: She could really read our sense of humor, like as a mother / daughter duo. And she had been using these like several different sets of oracle cards with us during our reading. But at the end, I said to her, "Is there anything you think we should be taking home with us from this?" Like, there's a store attached. And I was like, you know, "We'd love to buy something. Like, what should we take home?" And she's like, "I think you need a set of cards. And I think you should take home the 'Listen, Bitch' deck."

Pete: What?

Jen: Like, excuse me? So, it's a deck of cards. And every single card starts with, "Listen, bitch." Which, she didn't know that's my own personal unlocking mechanism when I'm writing, is to say, "Listen, asshole." She didn't know that.

Pete: Oh my god. That's the most Jen Waldman thing. That's wild. That's so Jen Waldman. "Listen, bitch."

Jen: Isn't that wild? So we bought the "Listen, Bitch" deck, and we've been using it every day. You know, we pull a card and we'll be like, "Okay, what am I focusing on today?" You know, "Listen, bitch, like you go out and be the best, baddest bitch version of yourself that exists." It's like, "Yes!"

Pete: Oh my god. That's so funny. I feel like we should do an episode where we read some "Listen, Bitch" cards and respond to them.

Jen: Oh my gosh, yes.

Pete: Oh, wow. What a cool experience. The power of the reframe. The way to look at having someone else help you see something from a different perspective, and how that can completely change your perception of and your interaction with and your relationship with reality. So cool. So cool.

Jen: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.