Jess (00:02.439)
Welcome back to another episode of How to 20 something where today I’ve brought on a coaching colleague to talk about honestly a couple of different things and how they all relate back to you being the leader of your life. Kind of like how I talked to you about how confidence shows up in multiple different facets of your life. Today’s topic is how leadership does the same thing. So who better to bring on than a leadership coach and

If you want help being the leader of your life when it comes to making friends, then it’s time for you to head to the show notes or to justdiamondcoaching .com forward slash friends and get yourself signed up for my next workshop called Find My Friends. I’m going to be teaching you three tips you need to move an acquaintance to a good friend because meeting people is easy. Meeting your people, that’s where it gets tricky, but it won’t be anymore.

after you attend my free Zoom call that will be held on Wednesday, September 25th at 7 .30 p Eastern. Again, go to the show notes or to justdiamondcoaching .com forward slash friends to sign up so that you can receive the Zoom link, the replay, and the worksheet so you can confidently make good friends in your 20s. And while you go sign up, I’m going to introduce who you’ll be listening to today.

Imagine living a life where self -prioritization isn’t a luxury but a necessity, where guilt and overwhelm take a backseat, and where thriving becomes your new normal. This is the world that transformational speaker and certified leadership coach Lori Scheibel is creating with high achieving women and companies across the globe. She helps amplify their communication, connection, and confidence so they can make more, do less, and love the life they’re living.

From 20 years in corporate leadership to her own training in neuroscience, somatic bodywork, and in performing improv, combines all her experiences to help you create success on your terms and live a life you love. Hi, Lori. Welcome to How to 20 something.

Laurie Schible (02:07.876)
Hi, thank you Jess, that was lovely. Yay.

Jess (02:12.647)
I’m glad you liked it. So we’re gonna go. You can go.

Laurie Schible (02:15.076)
I have to tell you really quick, I’m super excited about your workshop. That’s gonna be amazing. So just to by the way, like I’m gonna sign up for that. Cause it sounds awesome.

Jess (02:26.353)
Thank you. Appreciate that. Now we’re going to just jump right into all the questions I have for you. And one of the things that I love about your messaging is that being a leader isn’t necessarily a title or a position. Can you elaborate on how that mindset can apply to someone in their 20s? So how that could work for my listeners?

Laurie Schible (02:50.232)
Yes. Okay. So here’s the deal. I think we have a perception of, like when we think about what is a leader, we think about somebody who’s has like said name, CEO, director, executive, doctor, electrician, right? We perceive people who have labels or titles as the leader. And it’s a great thing, right? There is a leadership component to that. And

What I know about leadership is that we all, first of all, are leaders and we all have the capability to step up and lead. And especially when you’re in like a team environment, but even in your community with your friends, wherever you are, there’s always the opportunity to step up and be a leader. So I think the question you’re asking is how, like, how do you do that?

Yeah.

Jess (03:49.191)
Yeah, how do you do that? What does that look like? Anything.

Laurie Schible (03:53.986)
Yeah, okay. so really like, I think developing your own skills, first of all, starts with being a leader of your own life. And when you really embody the skills of leading your own life, you naturally show up as a leader for other people in life. So it’s a great quality to have throughout your entire life. So one of the things you can do is actually like,

think and act like a leader in your life. And a lot of that is about ownership. So it’s about ownership of your own choices, and it’s also about making decisions. So you want to take ownership and responsibility for all of your choices in your life. The good, the bad, the ugly. Own it all. It’s a part of you and the process of doing that, right? First of all, you’re going to learn

hashtag we’re human, right? So we’re gonna make mistakes along the way. We’re gonna have fantastic wins and everything in between. When we own all of it, our successes and our failures, that’s taking true ownership over our life. And when we do that, it becomes very easy to show up as a leader. Another thing that we can do is get really good at making decisions. So,

the best thing we can do. And this is the thing, by the way, too, that will paralyze us, right? Think about how often we’re like, even the little things like, I can’t decide what I want to have for dinner. Like, I don’t know. Am I in the mood for sushi? Do I want Italian? I don’t know. Somebody decide for me. All the things in our life, every area. So making decisions, that’s a great practice to get in. And what I recommend is what

Whatever you decision, like whatever decision you make, here’s a little secret. We can never make a wrong decision in life because there really are no right answers truthfully. Like when you really think about it, there are no right answers. So you get to just make the best decision for you, for whatever knowledge you have at that given point in time. And then this is the key, have your back.

Laurie Schible (06:16.76)
have your back for making that decision and make yourself right. Even if the decision you made leads to epic failure or success, it doesn’t matter because the decision you made is now moving you forward and it’s giving you an experience that you’re learning from either way. Right? So we’re growing, we’re evolving, we’re moving forward. So the better you get at making decisions, the more of a natural leader you become.

but the more you’re also just showing up and leading yourself in your own life and also having agency over your own life. So those are a few of the really key things. And part of that too, what you’re doing is also taking responsibility then for your own growth. So you decide, you get on board, you are creating the space for your own growth and you’re doing it in your way in a way that’s most aligned to you.

because you’re aligning to your own decisions versus following what everyone else is deciding and thinking and wanting to do. Make sense?

Jess (07:25.113)
Yeah, I’m so glad you said all of that because I agree. I think one of the things you were saying towards the tail end of all the greatness was that you made a decision based off of the information you had in that moment. And so many times, I know I’m guilty of this, too. We get caught up berating our past self for a decision we made with the information we have today, but we didn’t know it back then.

Laurie Schible (07:28.74)
haha

Jess (07:53.125)
yourself some slack you need to decide and then part of all the decisions that is what you thought what ended this conversation with was it’s a you’re making decisions that align with yourself you’re not following the pack and because you’re not following the pack and you’re staying true to your own values and to what you want and your goals and yourself you’re becoming the leader of your life

Laurie Schible (07:57.124)
you

Laurie Schible (08:18.038)
Yes, and you get to be an advocate for what you want. Right? That’s so important too. Like you get to advocate and speak up for what you want. And part of that too, some of this is just like social conditioning, right? We’re so used to like asking for permission. And when we’re not sure, when we don’t have all the answers and we’re not really sure of direction.

We tend to go to what the advisement of other people is or somebody who we perceive might have the answers, but they’re not you. And when you, you can take it all in, but ultimately it’s up to you to then turn inward and make the best decision for yourself and then really advocate for yourself. And part of that too, in that whole like like social conditioning, we have been deeply conditioned to ask permission.

and seek validation, right? We want to get permission from somebody else to do the things we want to do in life. Because we’ve been trained, right? In school, like, raise your hand, Johnny. You got to ask permission before you can go do anything or use your voice or ask a question. So it’s been really ingrained in our system. And we get to acknowledge that as adults, we have our own autonomy, our own capacity.

and our own abilities, we have the brain power now, right? We have the wisdom to tap into ourselves and really decide for ourselves what is best for us. So we don’t need permission and we also don’t need validation. It’s another really big one, right? We’re always like, it’s the validation is almost second guessing ourselves. Like the validation that we made the right decision or that what we’re doing is the right path.

But again, we’re the only ones that know that. And the sooner we recognize that and just practice that, that the easier life gets. Because now we’re not expending so much mental and emotional energy, wondering, like freaking out, like, is this okay? Is people gonna think I’m weird? Is this crazy? It’s like, no, I’m, just, it’s my decision back to ownership. I own it. It’s mine. Why? Because this is what is right for me. So that’s so big.

Jess (10:36.943)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think part of this is I want you to elaborate further on seeking validation versus bouncing off your ideas on someone else, on a friend, on a colleague, on another coach, on a mentor, on your mom, whoever it may be. You want that extra bit of support. And I also think that’s where something so special as coaching comes into the play of

Yes, you’re probably going to pick a coach who has been in your shoes to some extent. That doesn’t mean you’re following their exact path. They know how they got themselves out of it. They’ve made it into a system. But at the end of the day, we’re going to turn it back on to you and have you come up with the answers. You’re always going to hold those answers. And then we’re going to support you through that decision.

Laurie Schible (11:26.36)
Yeah. Here’s the thing. When we are left with uncertainty, where we feel like we don’t have all the answers, our brain loves to take us to a place of confusion. And our brain wants to offer up because of how our brain works, right? It likes to have evidence and proof that something works, right? Because primarily it’s like, nope, my job, our brain’s job is to keep us alive. Not to think, it’s actually to keep us alive. So its job is survival.

So when we’re looking to do something new or different, it’s gonna do everything and it can, it’s gonna be throwing us a whole bunch of like really powerful thoughts, right? That are very convincing by the way, that we should just stay put or we should go ask our grandma or a mom or our friend or like don’t trust yourself. And so we get to be onto our brains.

So it’s okay if we wanna go seek a mentor, seek a coach and get insight. And the best thing we can do is take all that information in, distill it down. And then the crazy thing, right? This is crazy, because we all live in our heads. Actually like get out of our head, drop into our heart, like drop into our body and just ask ourselves, okay, what’s the right path for me? What is the best thing?

And if we are really stuck in a place where we’re challenged to make that decision ourselves, you can actually like step into one. If you’ve got like two decisions, you can step into one and just feel it out. Like, okay, how would it be if this is the path, the choice that I made? How would it feel? And then step out of that and then step into the other decision and see what feels better. And again, it’s another thing we’ve been taught to think our way through life.

But the crazy irony is we’re human beings, like we’re actually emotional beings. We actually make decisions based off of emotion, right? And we know that. I mean, how many times have we seen like a crazy commercial, right? Like we think Nike Air, right? I’m like, they’re shoes. But the way that they do it, it’s so inspirational, right? It’s like.

Laurie Schible (13:43.33)
like Michael Jordan, he’s going in for the shot and like, it’s like this like crazy thing and it like, they bring in the music and like, they’re pulling your emotion into it you’re like, my God, I have to have those, right? Totally emotional decision. So this is just important to know this about our own brains and how our brains operate and how we make decisions. So when it comes to seeking out

support from others, like take it in, get information, gather information, but I highly, highly encourage you to make the ultimate decision for yourself and trust yourself. It’s the greatest practice in learning to trust yourself. Again, even if the decision was like, whoops, that one didn’t work.

You still made the best decision you could and you had that experience. And I guarantee you that experience is probably what you needed to get you to the next place that ultimately is getting you what you really want in your life.

Jess (14:48.783)
Yeah, and I think it’s all comes from thinking this decision through. You’re not just making a decision on a whim, which is what you started to explain. And funny enough, I did a decision making workshop, I think it was last year, and I had them do the exercise that you were talking about. So when Lori said step into that decision, we think you mean the same exercise that we have the same training. So I’m pretty sure you mean the same exercise that I’m thinking of. Actually, get up, stand up physically.

Laurie Schible (15:00.612)
Yeah.

Laurie Schible (15:14.733)
Yes.

Jess (15:18.489)
envision two circles in front of you and one circle on your right is going to be one decision, one circle on your left is going to be another and physically step into that decision and imagine what else happens or how that decision plays out. Come back to your neutral ground and then step forward into that other decision and your body is going to give you some kind of reaction and that’s you getting out of your head and getting into your heart. And I love that you mentioned

trust with all of this. So I feel like that’s a very key quality for someone to develop with themselves as they step into being a leader for their life or stepping into any leadership role. What are some other key qualities that someone can develop or focus on strengthening that will help them progress their own life or their own leadership capabilities?

Laurie Schible (16:09.73)
Yeah, well, I love on trust. I just want to add this to if you can, the earlier that you can develop deep trust in yourself, like it just makes all the difference in the world for you, right? Cause it makes decisions very easy. You have total ownership and power and agency over you. And I like to think about every time we make a decision and then we do have our own back for it, regardless of the result.

we’re adding deposits into our trust bank. But when we do something and then we falter or we fall out of our own word, or we don’t do the things we say we’re gonna do, we’re actually like making withdrawals out of our trust bank. And it’s creating a lack of trust, which is like an incongruency feeling inside our body. So that I’ve made this decision, this is what I’m gonna do. And then we do what we say we’re gonna do.

Develops that trust and it feels good because there’s congruence between what we say What we’re what we intend to do and what we’re actually doing so I love that Yeah, so trust is a really big thing You know other qualities that I think help you develop is is a really big one is self -awareness

The more that you can just get to know you, the more you will understand how you operate, how you show up in the world. The easier it is for you to tune inward and to really check in and listen to your gut, understand what that feels like and trust yourself, do all the things. So self -awareness is like step one, right? We need to create the level of awareness to know what’s happening.

in order to be able to develop these other things, right? And that part of that is understanding like, well, what are your strong points? What are your strong points and what are your weak points? And actually just acknowledging all of them and owning them. And you can develop both, right? I think you utilize your strong points. You can strengthen your weak points, right? Also, and you can really just lean into your strong points.

Laurie Schible (18:29.964)
So it’s knowing, knowing both is the key, right? That’s the first step of self -awareness. And it helps guide you when you’re making decisions on career path or different things, because you are very in tune with what your strengths are, what you love, what you don’t love, what you’re just so innately good at. It doesn’t even feel like a strength. Those are the things that we wanna learn too. That’s all part of that self -awareness.

Also understanding your own values. So when you understand your own core values, like what is it that really matters to you? Is it honesty? Is it family? Is it community? Like what are your core values? Because those are always running in our background. And typically if something either someone says,

or a situation you’re in, if either don’t jive with you, it’s very likely because it’s just butting up against a value, a core value that you have, and that’s not jiving with your core value. So knowing that, having that own self -awareness around your core values, it can actually help you appreciate other people’s points of view. It’s like,

yeah, well, okay, they just have a different perspective than me. I can appreciate that. I can honor that. Like that’s not for me, but I love that for you versus getting defensive and like, right, not being sure. And like, no, no, no, no, You know, I can’t do that. Don’t want to do that thing. It’s like, no, I’m just clear. Like these are my values and I got you maybe have different values than me. So just having those different levels of self -awareness are so important. And the, another big thing is actually understanding

your own brain. What thoughts are your is your brain offering you? The more awareness you can have around what thoughts are automatically being offered up to you. That is the main reason why we feel the way we do and why we’re taking the actions and why we get the results we get in life. So having that awareness around how we’re thinking is is critical and it also is like

Jess (20:38.311)
Thank

Laurie Schible (20:48.598)
If we are aware of what we’re thinking, then we can become aware of why we’re feeling the way we’re feeling. And then we have the agency to shift it, right? So those are just some key things around self -awareness. Another big thing is emotional intelligence. And I liken this to like, you get to actually just feel your own emotions. Understand emotions.

Jess (21:11.919)
And so, yes.

Laurie Schible (21:15.01)
Be okay being in the experience of them, good, bad, whatever. Because here’s the truth, emotions aren’t truly good or bad. Some feel better than others, absolutely. But emotions actually are just teachers. The way that we feel something, an emotion, all the emotions are, they’re just our own guides to let us know.

Jess (21:35.372)
you

Laurie Schible (21:44.388)
how we are entering into a certain situation, right? It’s a guide on, okay, I’m jiving here, I’m not jiving here, something’s off. So when we pay attention to our emotions, they are our biggest teachers. So learning, like developing your emotional intelligence is really powerful. And when you do that, you also gain the quality of empathy.

Jess (22:07.207)
you

Laurie Schible (22:12.524)
Empathy is so, it’s underserved, right? I think we all kind of see in the world, we’re like, we’ve all kind of gotten hearted. We’re working very much like kind of in our masculine principles, like go hard, work hard. It’s about goals. It’s strategy is linear. And then we have this other side that’s the whole human side. And part of that is empathy. And

Jess (22:25.052)
Yeah.

Laurie Schible (22:38.038)
It’s the missing link right now, right? In our society, like we’re very disconnected. And when we have empathy, we automatically create human connection. And human connection is like the lifeblood of our human existence. We are all meant to be connected, right? We’re like tribal by nature, we need to be connected. So learning that skill of empathy.

literally, it makes you a better human, right? You develop better relationships and it also helps you actually navigate conflict, managing challenging situations, move things forward because you are sensitive to what’s actually going on for someone, right? So if somebody is not well, right? Not aligned and not jiving with what you’re saying, right? You can assess it.

talk through it and then move forward versus things festering, right? You know how it is when we don’t communicate and we don’t talk. And then I’ve got something in my mind. I made up about what you’re thinking. You’ve got your own thought. And now we’re mad at each other for weeks when we get back together and we’re like, but I thought it was this. You’re like, no, I didn’t think that.

Jess (23:41.02)
So.

Laurie Schible (23:57.166)
where we could have just taken that moment, right? Acknowledge like, know, something feels off about this, right? I’m sensing some tension here, like talk to me, tell me more about this. And in five minutes, we can diffuse the whole thing, right? So empathy is really, really powerful. The other quality I think is really, really powerful is self -compassion. So we all judge.

We all judge ourselves more harshly than anybody else on earth. And we all judge other people, right? If you’re human, you’re judging other people, because that’s how our brain works, right? We don’t get away from it. And we also judge situations. So when we are judging, right, especially for ourselves, this is the really important thing. The best medicine that we can use is self -compassion.

So be kind, be kind to yourself, give yourself compassion. And when you’re judging yourself, you can actually just pause and just get curious about, what are all these harsh feelings? Like what’s going on here? Let me just figure out like what’s really going on here? Why am I feeling this way? And give yourself a big dose of compassion, give yourself grace.

Jess (24:56.625)
Thank

Jess (25:13.083)
Thank you.

Laurie Schible (25:22.764)
Right? Be in curiosity. Like, this is so interesting, right? That I’m so angry right now. What is going on here? I’m really curious. Like, what is actually happening that’s causing me to feel so strongly? Right? So learning how to give yourself self -compassion is so powerful. Right? And I think it goes without saying, be a kind human.

We need more kindness in the world. Be kind, right? Be kind to yourself first, then to other people. And you can be kind, yet very firm. You can be kind, yet own your boundaries. You can be kind and say no, right? That’s a very big distinction. It’s okay to be kind and also like, still do what you wanna do and make yourself a priority.

Jess (26:03.344)
Thank

Laurie Schible (26:20.586)
own and hold your boundaries and do all those things. So it’s very important to learn that too about yourself that you can be kind and also very firm. Right. And the last thing I would say about that is to just be, be flexible, be flexible, be adaptable. Right. If there’s one thing that we’ve learned about this world and in our life, change is a constant. Right.

Situations never stop happening. Things that we don’t expect to come up, they happen. So when we can learn to be flexible and adaptable, it allows us to be open to so many more possibilities and opportunities. It’s when we usually get down tunnel vision, right? Of like, no, no, no, no, this is what I wanted and this is it, right? And we get really like rigid and firm. And we’re like, no, actually.

Jess (27:10.523)
Yes.

Jess (27:16.241)
Thank

Laurie Schible (27:17.22)
that’s not even okay anymore. Like we really, we need to actually adapt to doing something different now. And when we can do that, the more we practice that, we are also building our own resilience. And that allows us to really handle any situation that hits us in life.

Jess (27:39.845)
Yeah, I love that all of the qualities you talked about. You talked about how they impact you as the individual and then how you can use it to strengthen relationships around you as well and be, I honestly, what comes up for me is the word tolerable. Be more tolerable of other humans around you. So I we are the main characters of our own lives. I’ve been saying this for a while. It’s a…

Laurie Schible (28:00.068)
Yeah.

Jess (28:07.887)
a saying that’s now within like the Gen Z millennial world. And it’s true. We do think about ourselves. We think about ourselves a lot. We think about how we are better than someone else or maybe we’re worse than someone else. We think about how what we’re doing right now might make us look like a fool or what other people are thinking of us. And it all comes back to our own brains and all of this. Everything that Lori just said all comes back to what’s going on inside your head.

and how what’s going on inside your head is impacting your outlook and therefore your actions in your life. Because what you believe is what you’re going to seek evidence for. So it’s what you’re gonna see out in the world, which is then going to further strengthen that belief of whatever it may be. So for me, I know it’s, I have a habit of saying dating is hard. And one of my girlfriends told me to stop saying that. She’s like, you’re not.

Laurie Schible (29:01.294)
Ha

Jess (29:05.617)
to say it’s hard anymore. Say something else. Just say you’re working on it. So she actually coached me around not having that mentality. And it’s even the jokes that you say about yourself of like, that was so dumb of me, like silly me. And it builds. You become a lot more judgmental on yourself instead of actually coming to yourself with that care and compassion that you were talking about. So all of that was so, so helpful. Thank you.

Laurie Schible (29:33.844)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I love that. I love that about your dating life, right? It’s like, right. You made the reminder too. And like one guess on how your dating life has been going up until then when you changed your mindset.

Jess (29:48.527)
Yeah, we’re still working on it. But that’s that’s part is all of these qualities are not just going to happen overnight. You’re going to listen to this episode and you’re probably going to mess up in an hour and say something harmful, harmful, harmful to yourself or rude to yourself. And just know this is a practice. It is a skill and you have to strengthen it. So don’t give up. Don’t get discouraged. If you’re you find yourself being hard on yourself, notice it and take it with, God.

Laurie Schible (30:03.726)
Yes.

Jess (30:18.471)
actually noticing at this time, so now I can course correct. Now I can change the language that I’m using to talk about myself or to talk about someone else or talk about a situation and make it better. Change the narrative around.

Laurie Schible (30:32.054)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so there is actually, okay, so there’s actually a practice that I use to help my clients develop, to help them take charge of their life. So it is very exactly in line with what you’re talking about. So I wanna share this with you. Do you wanna hear what this is? Okay, awesome. All right, so this is…

Jess (30:56.143)
hear what this is.

Laurie Schible (31:00.514)
This is a practice that like what Justin and I have been talking about, about managing your mind and all of that. I’ve got a specific process that I follow. I did not make this up. I learned this, but it is one of the most valuable tools that I have in my tool bank that I teach every client that I have. And I often am using it in the background in my mind to assess what’s going on with a client. Right? So when I am observing a client and I’m in client mode,

everything that is coming out of the client’s mouth, I’m seeing as thoughts from their brain and that everything they’re saying is a story. And it helps me to see, okay, so what are the beliefs driving them? Like what is driving them to believe this story? And that really helps to keep things clean and to help see what’s going on and to question like,

Okay, well, that’s an interesting thought. What’s having you think that? So the process that I use, so this is like the best thing that you can do is actually learn how to manage your thoughts daily. And this is a tool that you can use to manage your thoughts. It’s called the thought model. And the essence of it is, is we all have situations in life. Okay, there’s always circumstances.

They never stop happening, right? Something always comes up. Something’s always happening. Often it’s not what we wanted to happen or not in the way. But the thing is they’re just situations and they’re neutral. It’s so important to recognize that the situation itself, it’s neutral. The thought you have about it makes it mean something.

because the thought you have about the situation or what somebody says, that is what your brain is telling yourself. It’s what you’re making the situation mean. So you assign it meaning. And this is so valuable because a lot of us are like, well, if I could just, if this person would just do this, or if this person would just, if they would just like calm down, or if they would just do this this way, right? Basically what we’re saying is,

Laurie Schible (33:24.172)
If I could just change the way that person does something or control them, then we’d be great. But here’s the reality. We can, that’s one thing that we are never in control of are other people. Because we all have our own values, our own set of beliefs and our own views and perspectives of the world, right? But what we do always have control over are our own thoughts. So when you, so here’s the thought model. You have a situation.

Immediately what happens is you have a thought about it. Now notice, you are making that thought up. It is just a thought. So a thought enters into your brain, right? So Jess, you might be hanging out with your friends and then you see somebody and you’re like, he’s kind of cute. And then immediately your brain offers up to you.

but he’s like way out of my league. he would never be interested in me. Right. Thoughts. Thoughts are coming up. We are making, here’s this poor guy, right? He’s neutral. He’s neutral. He just walked by, his own business, right? Mined in his own business. And then we had a thought about him and we made it mean something about him and about us. And as soon as we have that thought, then

Jess (34:43.367)
you

Laurie Schible (34:52.556)
The thoughts are what make us feel everything we feel.

It’s not the person.

It’s not him, it’s what we thought about him that makes us feel the way we feel. Right? So let’s say in that like totally made up scenario, right? Justice is like, my God, he’s so out of my league. I’m not good enough for him. He would never talk to me. Right? All of those thoughts. She’s probably gonna have feelings of like heart palpitation and fear. Like, dear God, like, please friends don’t cause a scene. Don’t like bring him over.

Right? We’re going to be scared. We’re going to be like, there’s no way I can’t, I can’t, I can’t talk to him. Right? Those thoughts are going to drive those feelings. And so in our thought model, we have our situation. Guy walks by, we have a thought, dear God. not good enough. Right? Some version of that drives these feelings of fear. And the next step in the thought model is based on this situation, we have a thought about it. drives a feeling.

Jess (35:34.011)
Thank you.

Laurie Schible (35:57.666)
The feeling is what causes us to take action or inaction. Right? So let’s say in this scenario, Jess, Jess’s friends catch wind that like she sees this guy and is interested and one of them like walks over to him. And suddenly Jess is under the table, hiding under the table, right? Her action is like, quick, hide.

Jess (36:24.524)
So, Jack, this has actually happened and we recently…

Laurie Schible (36:30.244)
I love this made -up scenario even better. You’re like, no, no, that was yesterday.

Jess (36:35.239)
So one of my girlfriends, Sam, you know her, the audience knows her because she was a guest not too long ago. She is not a friend that if you’re like, that guy is cute. She’s like, I’ll go grab him for you. And without you being able to interfere at any moment, she’s already across the room talking to him. And you just want to die. And it’s not necessarily those thoughts.

Laurie Schible (36:43.405)
Yeah.

Laurie Schible (36:53.756)
Yeah. Yeah. That’s Sam. That’s absolutely Sam. Yes, we totally got it. Yes. So imagine in this little thought model scenario how Jess felt when Sam’s like, I got you. I’m over here. I’m going to bring them right over to you. Right? She probably like literally run and hide. That’s the action. Right? And then the result, the result is probably like embarrassment for Jess.

probably not the best initial introduction. So in this scenario, it’s fun to just see, you can take a really fun scenario and just see, here’s how the thought model logistically operates in our life. So cute boy, had thoughts about him, felt a certain way, took a certain action that created this result in my life. And so when Jess said dating’s hard.

Now we can see why the result in Just’s life is that she believes, right, it’s a reinforcement to her back to her brain, dating’s hard, right? Meanwhile, she’s got her buddy Sam over here like, eh, not a thing, it’s easy, right? But we can tell what Sam’s thought model is about dating, just by her response, feelings about it, and actions. So that is the.

best, it’s one of the best tools you can use is the thought model, right? So you can take any situation, you just take the situation. What’s the primary, the one thought, the one primary thought you have about it? And how did it make you feel? And then list out all the actions that you took or didn’t take, right? Sometimes we take action. Sometimes we literally freeze, like it’s in action that happens, right? And that’s where our like reactions or responding.

comes into play is on that action line. And then what were the results that came out of that? And then what you can do is actually create a second thought model right alongside of that same situation, but then choose a thought that serves you. What thought would actually serve me in this and then run the model? Well, how would I feel if that was the thought I was thinking? What actions would I take?

Laurie Schible (39:13.56)
feeling that way, thinking that thought, and then what result would I get in my life? And when you actually practice this daily, watch your entire life change. It’s that powerful.

Jess (39:28.241)
So when you say to practice this daily, does that mean you have to catch yourself in the thought process first? Because you know how a lot of times, like I know I have affirmation practices, meditation practices in the mornings. This isn’t one of those types of daily practices where I’m going through the motions, but it would be more so in real time while I catch myself having this thought. And it’s like, wait, this happened. Let me separate myself.

Laurie Schible (39:31.374)
Mm -hmm.

Laurie Schible (39:56.29)
Yeah.

Jess (39:57.721)
it is a neutral situation that occurred, I’m adding the thought, what thought will serve me better? Is that correct? Like it’s, has to be in the moment more.

Laurie Schible (40:06.244)
It can happen both. And here’s the thing, when you first start practicing this, this goes back to levels of self -awareness. So as you gain levels of self -awareness, because you first have to get off of like, are run 95 % of our day, is run by our unconscious brain. We’re not conscious to our thoughts. We’re just running on automatic, right? Which is why we’re just repeating the same thing that we did yesterday and last week and last year, rinse and repeat.

Jess (40:08.715)
Laurie Schible (40:35.448)
because it’s operating from that same set of beliefs, driving the same thoughts, doing it over and over. We have to create a conscious thought. We have to create conscious thinking in order to have the awareness around what’s happening. So this is kind of like waking ourselves up and actually being the observer of how we’re operating in our lives. So…

When you first start using this model, what most likely is gonna happen is you’re gonna use it in hindsight. So let’s say last week when that interaction happened with you and Sam, you would now today or that night or the next day, you would run a thought model on that. You’d go, okay, here was the situation, here was the predominant thought in my head and the feeling I had and the action I took and the result. Now, how do I?

want that scenario to go. I don’t want to be scared to talk to these guys. I want to feel comfortable and confident. So what can I think instead? Right? And this is where like, when you think about this, you, don’t want it to be something that’s total BS. Cause if you go from like, I’m freaking scared to death, I’m literally going to hide under the table to I’m going to stand up and confidently walk over and ask him out on a date. Like there’s

probably some in between there, like your brain is kind of called BS on you if you say that thought. So you have to think about what thought can I truly like wrap my brain around that I could believe I could do and choose that thought, something that serves you that will help you get the results or closer to the results that you want in that situation.

Right? So that would be your first model is I’m going to do a review of what happened. You’re like, Ooh, this situation didn’t go well. Let me run a thought model on this and actually see what happened. And then you can run a second thought model on what thought would I like to think instead that will serve me and how it would make me feel. What actions do I take and what results will I get? So that’s what’s happening at first. As you develop

Laurie Schible (42:53.956)
deeper levels of self -awareness, like now for me, I’ve been doing this work so long. There’s a lot of times and it doesn’t happen, right? It’s like, I would say maybe I don’t even know 10%, 20 % of the time I’m aware and there’s still a lot of the time I’m not aware in real time what’s happening. I do it after. So when this happens to me in real time, it’s almost like I’m kind of like outside of myself being an observer of myself watching this happen.

where a situation will happen, I’ll have an immediate, I usually have an immediate reaction. Like I just feel something. And then I’ll immediately be in tune. Cause I’m like, it jars me into my consciousness. Cause now I’ve practiced this like, okay, what’s going on here? And I’m immediately aware of like, all right, what am I thinking about this person? Or what am I thinking about this situation right now? Like, okay, that makes total sense.

Like, and this is all happening like really quickly in my brain in real time, right? Okay, this all makes sense right now. And as soon as I do that, when I actually can see, this thought had just created this feeling that I don’t like. Okay, well, I’m going to just at least let me choose a different thought. It may be just to be neutral. Okay, let me just listen neutrally without having any reaction. Let me just actually literally listen and lean in and hear them.

without a reaction, that might be my thought. Right? So I can decide in real time, right? How I’m going to decide to think about that situation, which then changes the way I feel. And usually when we’re in situations, it’s like stress, everything kind of peaks, right? So when that’s happening, I’m doing, I’m like having thoughts about getting myself at least back to neutral.

if not back to calm. Because here’s the reality, when we’re in situations and our stress level peaks, right, someone makes us angry and it’s like in an instance like, right, or we get overwhelmed or fear, we literally lose our minds. Like scientifically our brain shut down and our primal survival brain turns on. So our higher level, higher conscious thinking literally shuts off.

Jess (44:52.623)
to create these situations.

Laurie Schible (45:15.864)
So, know, and you’re like, you stand up and you’re like, I could do this. This is great. I have so much to say. Then you stand up in front of a crowd and you freeze and your, your mind just goes blank. That’s exactly what’s happening. So you can take a few breaths, calm your system back down, have a thought of like, I’m okay. I’m safe. And a reinforce the thought that you are okay. You’re safe. You’re calm. What that does is turns your higher level thinking back on it. Re -engages it because you’ve like,

shut down the cortisol and the stress that just got like injected into your body by having those thoughts that were creating all of these really big emotions. So that’s where it becomes this tool becomes really helpful when you practice it. And when you become more and more aware that it can help you diffuse yourself in real situations in real time. Yeah. So that’s a no.

great question and I’m so glad you asked that because both happen and that’s like what’s actually going on behind the scenes.

Jess (46:21.359)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, and I think with all of this is we’re talking a lot about how you can self -regulate, but we’ve also talked about control and you can’t control how someone else chooses to self -regulate. And I think that’s where it comes back to being the leader of your life is knowing what do you have the power over and it’s yourself. It’s nobody else. And following through and taking action according to that mentality and that thought process.

is what’s gonna allow you to stay aligned with yourself and to take charge.

Jess (47:02.663)
I just got a weird internet connection. Are you still here? Okay. All right. All that being said, I want to jump into something that you really help your clients with. And you work primarily with high achieving women, meaning they are probably balancing a lot of things in their life. How do you help your clients with work life integration? And then how can a 20 something listening

Laurie Schible (47:07.586)
Yes, that’s hot. I’m still here.

Laurie Schible (47:24.228)
Mm -hmm.

Jess (47:30.449)
who feels like they have no time in their life anymore now that they have a full -time job, begin to incorporate this integration.

Laurie Schible (47:38.112)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. So this tool actually, so remember how it helps bring your stress level down? This tool is so valuable for you because here’s what happens. We get overwhelmed, right? Life comes at us and we start to, like a lot of things that I hear, like I overbook myself and I’m like…

I don’t have enough time in the day to get everything that I need done, done, right? It’s easy to fall into that trap. Because again, society in our country specifically, Capitalists, which gives us so much opportunity, right? Like an endless opportunity upward. And with that comes a lot of that pressure that’s been created of this belief over many, many years, really for like the last 100 years since the industrial revolution.

We have created this element of trading our time for money and having to work really hard, right? To work our way to end up creating results and success, you know, starting somewhere and working our way up. So all of those things, just thoughts. They’re things that society has created for us.

Right? And a lot of it has created this feeling of like, have to do it all. I have to do it all now. And I also have to do it really well. So we lean into like perfectionism because we’ve taught it’s like never good enough. And then we have also because we’ve been taught, you got to be nice. Got to be kind. Right? out. Get everybody. Okay. Right. So then we start to people, please. Right. Everybody okay? Everybody okay?

And then all the force of like the hard work and working yourself up and like, well, it’s endless. So, you know, the harder where you work, the more you hustle, the more you can create, which creates this level of like hyper achievement. So we have all of these things combined that is creating a lot of what has us feel really unbalanced. And.

Laurie Schible (49:56.728)
Balancing, if you will, is really just an integration of our work and our life. It’s actually just how do we operate everything that we do in a day. And what’s so important is how can we really look at creating more spaciousness for ourselves in our calendars because we’re so busy.

We’re so caught up in technology. We’re consuming massive amounts of information, like way more information in one day than like the amount of information that’s in front of us in one day is like what a typical person would consume maybe 20, 25 years ago in a week or maybe even a month. Like it’s astounding. And I can’t remember what the stats are, but it is astounding to my brain to like just like recognize.

how much we’re sheerly consuming in a day. So that’s very mentally exhausting and becomes emotionally taxing too, right? Cause we’re having thoughts about it, create the emotions. So it helps us like make sense of like why we feel kind of so drained of energy and like we’re always trying to keep up and trying to get there. So we get to decide to create the space and…

Jess (50:58.748)
Thanks.

Jess (51:15.995)
you

Laurie Schible (51:20.334)
how much we get to do in a day or not do. We get to decide our own process and our own path. really, hard work and hustle, that’s another thing to just assess with this, right? When you feel like, do we integrate all of this into our life and on our work? There are going to be periods of our life where we’re just gonna be in that, right? We’re gonna just be in hustle, even though like,

Hustle behavior is like almost like we’re catching up. Hustle energy kind of comes from a lack. It’s like I’m behind and I have to work really hard in order to get something. And so we’re constantly like reaching, striving, and like we can never quite get there. It’s very like a kind of a lack feeling and also like a desperation and I’ve got to do it. And it overrides our nervous system instead of us really listening.

Jess (52:06.065)
Thank

Yeah.

Laurie Schible (52:16.322)
And sometimes we’re in that, right? It’s like no judgment on that. Sometimes we all just end up in a hustle space in different seasons of our life and our businesses and our, you know, and our work. It’s important for us to recognize it though, because it’s very unsustainable. Hustling is the quickest path to burnout. And there is actually a distinction between hard work and hustle. Hustle, we’re draining ourselves.

Jess (52:39.26)
Thank

Jess (52:44.199)
you so much.

Laurie Schible (52:45.988)
Constantly hard work is a little different and I can give you an example like I’ve had some like when I’m creating programs or doing certain things in in my own day in my business There are things where I might work a 12 or 13 hour day because I have clients and then I’m building a program and then I have a networking thing or whatever it is But at the end of the day, I’m so Energized I was like working hard

all day, but what I was doing was filling me up. Like I’m getting energy from that. So it’s okay to work hard, right? And we’re gonna have those periods and we can work really hard doing what we’re doing. And we really get to tune in and listen to our bodies. We get to understand like what’s my capacity level, right? I think of like a gas meter.

Like, what’s my capacity meter telling me today? Right? Maybe we just, didn’t sleep well the night before. We’ve had, we have something really personal that’s heavy, that’s weighing on us and it’s taking a lot of emotional energy. Like we get to, again, like get out of our head and tune into our body and really tune into like, what is my capacity? And here’s the thing. This is the thing that will always have you in your own power is

Having that self -awareness and knowing it is your power because it gives you choice. When we’re hustling, we are just in it and we can never catch up and we’re going crazy, crazy, crazy. We’re not aware. We’re going like way beyond our capacity level, right? And when we do it over and over, it never ends well for us. When we are aware, we might still choose to double down and go, but we have an awareness

Awareness around it. We’re in tune Right, but we’re at choice. We’re making that choice. We’re not taking societal pressures or The fact that we have think we have to perfect it or this hyper achievement or this people -pleasing right? We’re making the choice That is what will hold your agency over your own life and help you be the leader of your life more than anything

Laurie Schible (55:08.132)
And I think the other biggest thing, there’s, okay, there’s a couple of things in this. Another thing is to not worry, right? Think about how much time we spend worrying. This is like future thinking, right? The worrying about, my God, right? Is it gonna happen? it gonna happen? Is it not always gonna say, not gonna say? All this future thought, it is the most draining nonsense, right? Because 99 .9 % of the things we worry about never happen anyway, right? So, and knock it off, knock off the worry.

Jess (55:19.033)
He’s ear -soaked, not done.

Laurie Schible (55:37.59)
Right? And the way you can do that is let’s stop taking everything so seriously. Let’s remember to play. Right? This is where like improvs, I do, I perform improv in my life and it has been the best teacher in life for me to remember to play. And when we’re kids and we’re young, we don’t have that level. We’re always in this high creative state.

We’re always taking care of our needs and ironically, we’re constantly emotionally regulating ourselves, right? The reason kids have tantrums is they need to release something. There’s a big emotion and that’s their method to release it or why they’ll cry at the drop of a hat. Because like think about it and they cry for two minutes and then they’re often they’re running and laughing and playing with their best friend again. They just had to release something. So we all have the ability to…

regulate our emotions at any point in time. But as we get older and we get responsibilities and society really kind of takes its space up in our head, right? We tend to stop listening and we shut that down. And then we think, it’s not appropriate. it’s not okay to cry. It’s not okay to show emotions. if I’m loud, I’m being hysterical. if I’m…

like too quiet just sitting here because I’m having a down day. Well, I’m not confident. I’m not speaking up, right? They’re all just things that society has told us. So we get to decide what to do at any given point in time, right? When we just allow ourselves to approach everything with curiosity, fun and play, holy cow, how much more energy do you have in your life, right?

Yes, so very, very important. And the other, the last thing I will say about that is really think about always, think about in your schedule, in your life, in your day, what can you remove and what can you just simply let go of?

Laurie Schible (57:47.288)
And that will free back up hours of your day every day and give you back so much mental and emotional energy.

Jess (57:56.177)
I like that this all kind of went full circle. We started the conversation with how being leader of your own life is making decisions that are aligning with you and the choices you make and the control you have over it. And it just kind of all came back in again for inviting that play and the power of play, the power of being decisive in your life, the power of staying true to yourself is all what’s going to help you.

live your best life, which is Lori’s main message is that’s what she wants to help people do. Like, why would you want to live a crappy life? I don’t think anyone wants to live a crappy life. Just nice that it kind of all came back together. Really quickly, as we wrap up today’s episode, can you just walk us through your process that you help your clients with and how it can help my listeners set themselves up for the decades to come? Before you do, I think a large part of the self doubt.

Laurie Schible (58:31.236)
Right?

Laurie Schible (58:36.088)
Yeah.

Jess (58:51.557)
the indecisiveness that comes with our 20s is that fear of the decisions we make today is gonna screw up our future decisions or screw up some future version of ourselves. So you go into not making anything, but I wanna hear your process. So how do you help your clients just be successful with their lives?

Laurie Schible (59:11.95)
Yeah, well, I mean, really everything we talked about, like that basis of if you can manage your own mind, then you can manage your own emotions. And then literally you can create anything you want in your life. It truly, truly is that powerful. Right. So it’s possible for us to make our significant impact in this world and really make a difference without sacrificing our own health, our own wealth.

Right? When we have agency and we have power over us and to remember that we always have agency over our own thoughts, which is what is driving all of the actions and the results that we’re creating or not creating in our life. And that’s the biggest thing that you can remember. And the other piece that I would say to that is like, remember to be a good human.

Right? In this, in our world right now, we’re disconnected. And even the most simple connection, like smiling at somebody as you’re passing them by on the sidewalk, as simple as that act is, that could literally make a profound difference to that person because you never know what they’re going through. So that empathy, creating human connection is the evolution for us to bring it back.

full circle that makes you a good human. You will create an incredible community and incredible relationships if you are a good human first. And when you learn to manage your mind and manage your emotions, now you are super regulated and you can literally create anything that you want in your life. Done.

Jess (01:00:53.959)
It’s all mindset. It’s all in your head.

Laurie Schible (01:00:56.248)
Yes, it really is. It’s all in your head, right? So we get to take back our brains. Let’s do this.

Jess (01:01:02.055)
Yes. All right. Wow. Thank you so much, Lori, for all of this valuable information. I just love this conversation. And so thank you for being a guest on How to 20 something. Where can people find you if they want to get in touch or if they want to see your content? Think about working with you. How can how can people find you?

Laurie Schible (01:01:10.732)
Me too.

Laurie Schible (01:01:21.314)
Yeah, you can find me on Facebook. So I am it’s easy because it’s my name, Lori Alphabet, Shible. So if you type in Lori Alphabet, you’re going to find me. I’m the only like alphabet out there. I also am on LinkedIn under my name, Lori Shible. And I’m on Instagram as well under Lori Shible coaching. So basically, if you type my name into Facebook, Instagram,

or LinkedIn, you can find me. And I really, really like message me, say hi, let’s start a conversation. Let me see how I can help you out in the world, help you network, help you really get to where you wanna be. And I love meeting other amazing humans. So please reach out and connect, say hi. If there’s anything I can do to support, I’m here.

Jess (01:02:12.295)
All of her information will be linked in the show notes for you to immediately access so you don’t even have to type in her name and figure out to spell it either because we’ve got some hidden vowels in there, but otherwise This so you go check the show notes right now so that you can get in contact with Lori because she’s an incredible human and I think having her in your life will make you that much more of an incredible human so

Laurie Schible (01:02:19.728)
Hahaha.

Laurie Schible (01:02:37.289)
Aww, thanks.

Jess (01:02:39.015)
does conclude another episode of How to 20 something. If you liked what you heard, if you know someone who needs to hear this podcast, then please pass it along, share it on social media and tag me and Lori when you do. Text it to your cousin, your best friend, your roommate, whomever. And as always, I can’t wait to be in your headphones again next week with another brand new episode.