Your Mind is a Superbaby

If Tony Robbins, Brendon Burchard, Brooke Castillo, Gary Vee, Oprah Winfrey, Derek Sivers, and The Minimalists had baby, it would be me.

Not because I’m spectacular in any way, but because my mind is a product of their ways of thinking. When I create content, I think I’m sharing my ideas – or am I? Is my content even my own original content, or is it just a Tony/Brendon/Oprah superbaby that my brain believes is my own? Just because I had the thought doesn’t mean I grew the thought, it may have been planted there. (Inception vibes, anyone?)

No idea is new. Everyone is influenced by other people and their thinking. Even though I believe I came up with this blog post idea myself, it stems from a web of influence I’ve had from all of those people’s thinking (and many others).

Our mindsets, beliefs, and content are actually a compilation of other people’s influence. This is a beautiful thing because that means that Tony Robbins had his own web of people who influenced his thinking, and his mentors had their own web and so on. We are a product of the people we spend our time with (or in my case, watching on YouTube!).

Your mindset is a web of other people’s influence, then your mindset is a superbaby. A baby that has the ability to evolve and take on new information and beliefs. Who’s mindset are you choosing to let shape your reality?

Strive to be Authentic – Not Unique

When I was 13 years old, there were two girls in my class that I thought were so incredibly cool. I would secretly try to come up with ways to impress them and get them to like me. One day, I ran into them on the weekend, and they were both wearing beautiful new strappy sandals. When I asked where they got them from, they told me it was from a shop that was “their” shop, and they wouldn’t tell me. They didn’t want me to have them too, because then the shoes wouldn’t be special.

Trying to be unique twists us in strange ways. It makes us waste time trying to be special or different and try do things differently that were perfectly good enough the way they were in the first place.

Being unique is totally overrated.

You don’t need to come up with the next big idea, you just need to do the same old ideas – but as you.

Most songs on the top of the charts right now are the same. There’s nothing unique about 4 chords. But the artists bring their own authenticity to the songs, and thats what makes us love them.

The world doesn’t need a new invention from you. It needs a blog written – by you. It needs a house built – by you. It needs the same old pair of jeans sewn – by you.

All the world really needs from us is our authentic selves.

Isn’t that a relief? To free ourselves from the need to do or be something special and different? I’m not doing anything unique and my content isn’t revolutionary: other people have written blogs and created membership sites before. Other people are High Performance Coaches. Other people talk about achieving impossible goals. 

Tony Robbins is credited with inventing life coaching. If you’re reading this, you could just be on Tony’s website instead. I’m not saying anything unique or different from him. It’s the same stuff. But you’re still reading this, because I’m just doing it as me, because you resonate with the same old concepts coming out of my mouth.

Don’t be different, just be you.

Yin & Yang

With my own coach yesterday, I discovered something that is blindingly obvious but I hadn’t noticed about myself: For the last year I’ve been functioning at about 95% masculine energy in my life.

I’m all about DOING. Go. Pushing. Impossible. Breaking limits. Taking action. Making decisions. Committing. Hustling. Working. 24/7. Planning. Doing.

I love that about myself – don’t get me wrong. I think that my masculine energy is what has got me to where I am in my life with my relationships and my business and my health. I’m all about making things happen. But I know that what got me here won’t get me there, so now it’s time to allow things to happen.

Now is time to bring back the BEING. Letting go. Allowing. Ease. Expansiveness. Wholeness. Patience. Tenderness. Acceptance. Softness.

Yin and yang (feminine and masculine) are two parts of the same whole. They are a balance.

And I’ve been so far off balance I think I forgot what yin was.

This is my challenge to myself (notice that masculine language!) to go to the next level with my goals, and bring back the balance of yin and feminine: Learn to just be.

I removed some of my daily habits from my habit tracker (My motto is still: If it matters, do it daily – but now I’m being more considerate about what actually matters!), and I’m practicing letting things be.

I look forward to giving you an update and seeing if this girl can bring some balance back into her life.

The Mindset of an Inventor

I’ll admit it, I’m a chronic planner. Since I was old enough to write, I’ve filled journals from cover to cover with ideas, schemes and plans – belated apologies to my childhood friends who played my unassuming test subjects.

Initially, I thought I wanted to be an inventor (yes, like Professor Floop from Spy Kids or Edna Mode from The Incredibles. They were – and still are – my inspirations.) and to this day I still consider myself one (I’ve just invented a membership called Impossible Incubator, which essentially helps other people invent and live out their wildest dreams).

NOTE: Add ‘Inventor’ to my business card please, Barbara.

But now I’m realising that while it is a great strength to have new ideas and inventions all the time, the greatest strength is in following through on a plan. The greatest plan in the world is no use if it’s never put to work. I have to wonder how many life-changing inventions have never come to fruition because the inventor never made it out of the drawing-room.

Here’s how I made things happen up to this point: I just tried stuff.

And I failed a bunch of times. And I’m sure as anything I will fail many more times in the future.

In 2001 I made an “air hostess bag” (a suitcase with wheels) using a cardboard box and a set of bicycle training wheels and carried it around for 20 minutes before it fell apart.

In 2003 I made an eco-friendly marble run out of toilet roll tubes and a hot glue gun and gave it my friend Tim for his 8th birthday (this was back before eco-friendly was trendy yet. He wasn’t impressed.)

In 2007 I sold homemade cookies on the side of the road and I didn’t even sell one (although I did get invited to join the local baptist church – I declined).

In 2004 I started a ‘makeup company’ with my friend Ruth, it was called Mischief Makeup (or MMU, our secret code at school) and we made blush and eyeshadow from grinding up different coloured chalk with her mum’s cheese grater).

In 2011 I started a 2 man dance crew where the other member almost never showed up to practice.

In 2015 I started a food charity for homeless people in Wellington but it only ran for one night.

In 2017 I started an ethical vegan t-shirt line and I *only* sold two t-shirts.

In 2018 I started a travel blog until I realised I didn’t want to be a travel blogger.

None of them worked.

But who knows what hundreds of other ideas WOULD have worked, if only I’d got them off the paper and into the world?

Like my water-alarm doorbell (2005) or my school cheerleading team (2008), or my treehouse (minus the tree) in the backyard (2007) or my robot suit (2002), or my before-school disco parties (2012) or my alcohol-free party drink (2015) or my thermal-lined jeans (2016) or my online Instagram course (2018)? I’ve got evidence that I spent hours planning out of all of these ideas in journals, and now they’re sitting in a cardboard box in my Mum’s garage collecting dust. Rest in peace, robot suit.

But the proof is in the pudding! According to my definitely not fact-checked source, the original saying is “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.” In other words, you’re only going to find out if something works if you try it.

Don’t you just adore those wild and wacky inventors who just TRY stuff, knowing that they’ll probably fail? They are so dedicated to their smell-gun or their time machine or their dog-translator idea that they never seem to give up trying different ways to make it work.

What if you gave yourself permission to just start trying stuff? Start the blog. Write the book. Build the Spy Den. Open the shop. Make the jewelry.

No one wants to hear the story of the inventor who had the perfect plan and it worked the first time.

You’ve got brilliant ideas buried inside you. Bring them to life, watch them die and try again! Enjoy the process. Believe in your magic. Have patience. Never give up.

That is the mindset of an inventor.

The Power of Visualization

Imagine going to your kitchen, picking up a lemon, slicing through it and biting straight into it, juice squeezing out into your mouth.

Can you feel your tongue go tingly?

That’s the power of visualization.

Why does it work? Because the brain can’t tell the difference between reality and imagination.

Researchers have found that the mental practice of a skill can be just as effective as physical practice. How wild is that? You can literally imagine running a race over and over in your mind, and it will help you progress with your running. That’s because the same regions of your brain are being activated.

Athletes can only train for a certain number of hours a day before their body fatigues. So that means two people putting in the same number of hours would have the same shot at winning a race. But then, those who go home and spend another several hours visualizing – their entrance into the water or onto the pitch or into the ring, their action on the starting gun, their last exertion – could have a giant advantage of over their competition (23% according to this study!).

That means that visualization is one of the most powerful tools we have to propel us towards our goals.

David Beckham does it. Steve Jobs did it. Olympic athletes do it. Today I’m starting it!

I have committed to a practice of visualization for each of my impossible goals, with music and my vision board. I’m excited to let you guys know how it goes – stay tuned.

Have you ever done visualization? Let me know in the comments!

You’ve Already Made It

The dream isn’t achieving a certain thing or reaching a certain milestone.

The dream is never giving up. The dream is the pursuit. The dream is the struggle along the way.

“You can measure your worth by your dedication to your path, not by your successes or failures.”

― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic

The hustle, the struggle, the pain – they are the achievements.

You don’t play a game to win, you play a game to play.

And you’re already playing the game.

You have permission to stop fighting the crippling feeling of ‘not being there yet’. You are already here. Welcome. You’ve arrived! (And you’ve been here all along).

Breathe out.

No matter how far away your end goal seems, there’s no doubt:

You’ve already made it.

What Would Elle Woods Do?

Tonight I watched Legally Blonde for beyond the 15th time (I can quote almost every line, anyone else?!).

Apart from being a funny comedy, Legally Blonde has got an absolutely kick-ass lead role.

Elle Woods is an unapologetically confident, positive person who knows she can handle anything. It doesn’t matter what is thrown her way, she has the self-belief we could all use.

My phone screensaver has been set with this saying “What would Elle Woods do?” for the last few months and as silly as it might sound, I genuinely believe I’m happier. When I choose to take on the identify of Elle Woods in any situation, the decisions I need to make become clear and the way I need to show up is immediately apparent.

It’s essentially a short cut to asking yourself, “How could I be a more positive, loving, kind, gregarious, unstoppable, confident person in this situation?”

I challenge you to set it as your screensaver and see what difference it makes!

Found Until Proven Lost

In the last week I’ve watched several people freak out because they think they’ve lost an item, only to find out it was exactly where they’d put it, or somewhere hiding under something close to them.

And yet every time, panic sets in. “I’ve lost my phone!” we proclaim, the moment we’ve patted ourselves down and checked in barely two different places.

We get hyper-stressed before we even know if it’s actually lost.

That’s why I want to suggest a different solution: don’t panic until you know it’s lost.

Just like in a court of law, where a defendant is innocent until proven guilty, I function under this rule: the item is found until proven lost.

Because 99 times out of 100, the item isn’t gone. But when you set yourself into panic mode, you don’t think straight, and you can’t search for it properly. We’ve all been in the position where we’re so set on an item being “lost” that we can’t see we’re already holding it in our own hand or staring at it right in front of us.

Your new mantra: Found Until Proven Lost.

What if..?

What if you didn’t need anything extra to achieve your goals?

No more money, no more time, no more knowledge, no more influence.

What if you realised you already had everything you need to achieve it?

What if you just got started?

You can be the happiest person in the world

Someone out there is the happiest person in the world. Why can’t it be you?

Happiness is a state of mind that you get to decide.
Therefore, that title is yours for the taking.

The happiest person in the world.

The only condition for you to be the happiest person in the world is for you to believe it.

What would your life feel like if you truly believed you were the happiest person in the world?
What would your relationships be like?
What would your health be like?
What would you career be like?

What is stopping you from being the happiest person in the world? If you are reading this blog post right now, chances are you have all of your basic needs met. Food, water, shelter, warmth. The rest is up to you.

That’s why I have a poster on my wall that affirms that I am, in fact, the happiest person in the world.

Repeat after me: I am the happiest person in the world.