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On this episode of the Less Stressed Life, we’re kicking off ADHD month with returning guest Brad Bizjack to talk about motivation, identity, and what can keep us stuck even when we know what we want to do. We get into why motivation often comes after action, the difference between pushing yourself and feeling pulled toward something, and how the stories we believe about ourselves can shape our behavior.

We also unpack toxic positivity and what happens when we avoid uncomfortable emotions like anger and anxiety. Brad shares a practical framework for processing emotions instead of stuffing them down, plus we talk about burnout, recharging your battery, and the difference between doing something that truly fills your cup and simply checking out or escaping.

✅Check out Brad's pervious episode, #423 Achievement Without Fulfillment and Perfectionism

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

🧠 Why motivation often comes after action
🔄 How identity and beliefs influence behavior
🧲 Push motivation vs. pull motivation
👏 Why rewarding the action matters
🔥 Processing anger and other uncomfortable emotions
🧩 The RULER framework for working through emotions
🔋 Recharging your battery vs. escaping

ABOUT GUEST:
Brad Bizjack is a personal development expert, mindset strategist, coach, inspirational speaker, and podcast host with over 10 years of coaching experience. His mission is to help people maximize their life, master their mindset, and elevate their relationships and career to the next level and beyond. Brad is happily married to his beautiful wife, Janiece. They reside in Western Illinois in their lake house and have a daughter named Lillian and a dog named Oliver.

WHERE TO FIND GUEST:
Website: https://www.bradbizjack.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bradbizjack/
Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rewire-your-mind-w-brad-bizjack/id1435519731

SPONSOR:
Thank you to Jigsaw Health for being such a great sponsor. 💛 I’m sharing some pretty cool health pearls 💎 about vitamin K2, a misunderstood nutrient that goes way beyond 🦴 bone health, including its role in helping calcium get where it needs to go, ❤️ cardiovascular health, 🥾 performance and more. Save 10% on any Jigsaw Health order with code LESSSTRESSED10.

NUTRITION PHILOSOPHY OF LESS STRESSED LIFE:
🍽️ Over restriction is dead
🥑 Whole food is soul food and fed is best
🔄 Sustainable, synergistic nutrition is in (the opposite of whack-a-mole supplementation & supplement graveyards)
🤝 You don’t have to figure it out alone
❤️ Do your best and leave the rest

WHERE TO FIND CHRISTA:
Website: https://www.christabiegler.com/
Instagram: @anti.inflammatory.nutritionist
Podcast Instagram: @lessstressedlife
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lessstressedlife
Quick Links: https://www.christabiegler.com/links
Cortisol Shop: https://christabiegler.com/cortisol-shop

✨Grab Cortisol Reset here: https://christabiegler.com/cortisol-a

❓Questions for Christa? Submit them here: https://www.christabiegler.com/questions

TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Brad Bizjack: And so they set these safe, realistic, boring goals that don't actually drive them, and they wonder why they're not motivated Why they don't have the inspiration to go after something is because they, the people are like, "I'm lazy." You're not lazy, you just have crappy goals. You're not, you don't actually, aren't going after what your heart really wants. 

[00:00:21] Christa Biegler, RD: Welcome to the Less Stress Life podcast. I'm your host, Christa Bigler, and we're in the ninth year of this show, and I just want to say thank you so much for being here. I'm personally in a season of wanting to pay it forward, to share everything I have learned from our clients over the last decade so that I can share it with as many people as possible in the next years, in the next decade.

[00:00:46] Christa Biegler, RD: I'd love to hear from you about what you want more of in the future, in the coming months of this podcast. Feel free to drop me a line at https://christabiegler.com/questions.

ADHD Month and Guest Intro

[00:00:56] Christa Biegler, RD: Now, this month our theme is ADHD. I've become pretty interested in this topic in the last couple of years because I'm probably undiagnosed ADHD myself, so I set out to gather strategies on motivation, ADHD in women, conversations with therapists to bump up against the status quo, so to speak, diagnosing, improving executive function, and of course, one of my favorite topics, ADHD and nutrients.

[00:01:20] Christa Biegler, RD: I want incredible mental focus too, and I've found that when I'm supporting my body in the correct ways, I almost don't have some of those symptoms that usually come along with ADHD. I even created a small mini program on this called Finally Focused: Mental Clarity on Demand, because that's what I want when I need to focus.

[00:01:40] Christa Biegler, RD: Usually, you can only get it after you buy the Cortisol Reset, but it's on sale on its own for a limited time. The link is in the show notes. I thought it was only appropriate for ADHD month. You can get it at https://christabiegler.com/focus. Now, on to the show.

[00:01:55] Christa Biegler, RD: All right, today on The Less Stressed Life, I have back Brad Bizjack, who is a personal development expert, mindset strategist, coach, inspirational speaker, and podcast host with over 10 years of coaching experience. His mission is to help people maximize their life, master their mindset, and elevate their relationships and career to the next level and beyond. Brad is happily married to his beautiful wife, Janice, and they reside in Western Illinois in their lake house and have a daughter named Lillian and a dog named Oliver. Welcome back, Brad.

[00:02:23] Brad Bizjack: Thank you for having me, my friend. I'm pumped to be here. We're gonna have some fun. 

[00:02:25] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. Last year about this time, Brad was here and we had a fun chat about achievement without fulfillment and perfectionism. So we talked about being what it means to be a thermostat over a thermometer. We talked about detachment and perfectionism, so all incredibly relevant topics.

[00:02:45] Christa Biegler, RD: We talked a little bit about self-sabotage as a drive for safety when we're trying to achieve growth and success. And today, since it's ADHD month, we're gonna talk a little bit about motivation, productivity. People often say, "Oh, I need to just have more motivation." I know you came at one point from the fitness world, et cetera, so you probably heard that ad nauseam.

[00:03:06] Christa Biegler, RD: So we're gonna talk a little bit about productivity, motivation. Something that happens a lot in ADHD is we have, one, an identity that this is how we are. Two, we have sometimes this time blindness, and so I know you talk a little bit about time, productivity, et cetera. But you frame it from a whole stacking perspective overall.

[00:03:24] Christa Biegler, RD: And so we'll just kinda see where life takes us in general today, but welcome back, Brad. 

[00:03:29] Brad Bizjack: Thank you very much, my friend. I'm excited to dive into all of these. I love these topics, and I think especially around the idea of ADHD, I see a lot of times this being used as a reason or a story as to why success isn't possible.

[00:03:41] Brad Bizjack: And- ... I know so many people that have been diagnosed with ADHD that are wildly successful and deeply fulfilled, and it's possible for anyone. So I'm excited to go wherever you wanna go. 

[00:03:50] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah, and I know that you and I are entrepreneurs, so sometimes we're hanging out with entrepreneurs. And then there is...

[00:03:54] Christa Biegler, RD: And I've talked about this in other episodes for this month, but there is a very high percentage of entrepreneurs that have a diagnosis or identity around ADHD. And there's, this is not necessarily neither here nor there, but I could understand that you've known so many people that feel like success isn't possible because we have these certain limitations.

Identity Over Motivation

[00:04:12] Christa Biegler, RD: So let's start with motivation first or maybe even identity. Some of these topics are- topics we could talk about for an entire hour on their own. I think maybe it makes the most sense to start with the concept of identity. What happens when we sometimes have that diagnosis or we say, "I'm ADHD," and we are using it maybe as a self-limiting piece.

[00:04:35] Christa Biegler, RD: How do you see that show up? Because as you just said, you've seen it happen quite a lot. You've seen it happen where it's actually a reason where people don't believe that success is an option for them. 

[00:04:44] Brad Bizjack: Yeah, I see this if we think about identity from the perspective of it's a strongly held belief about who you are and who you are not, right?

[00:04:52] Brad Bizjack: And so if the context of ADHD is limitation as opposed to superpower, and that's the identity that you frame your entire life with, then everything becomes a struggle automatically, right? Instead of if you take a look at people that have been diagnosed with ADHD When someone finds something they love deeply, focus isn't really a problem at all.

[00:05:15] Brad Bizjack: It's just like they can laser in on it. Identity is just a belief about who you are and who you are not, and everything cascades down from that belief system. So if you believe that I'm ADHD, and that means that I have a belief that success is impossible, or business is hard, or health is hard, or whatever it is that's gonna change a lot of things like who you surround yourself with, the external influences in your life.

[00:05:37] Brad Bizjack: It's gonna s- change what you consume. It's gonna change what you study. It's gonna change then the behaviors you deploy or don't deploy, and therefore the results that you have in your life. And so everything cascades down from identity. And what I see a lot of people do when they have a limiting identity is they'll say things like, "I need more motivation before I can begin," without recognizing that motivation is a byproduct of action.

[00:06:00] Brad Bizjack: It is not the prerequisite to action. All of life, I think, is cause and effect, right? And if we obsess over the effect, we forget the cause, right? We're obsessing over motivation, which is an effect. We're forgetting the cause, right? And most people fall into, I like to call this the willpower trap. It's this perspective where I'm gonna wait for motivation to hit.

[00:06:20] Brad Bizjack: And so you'll notice if you look at motivation is fleeting, right? It comes and it goes. There are some days where I want to produce content. There are some days where I really don't want to produce content, right? And as someone who as a child was diagnosed with ADHD, it is incredibly important to recognize that motivation is not something that comes first.

[00:06:42] Brad Bizjack: It comes in waves. It's something fleeting. And by the way, what typically happens when we wait for motivation is that we're frustrated that it's not showing up, so we turn to something else called willpower. Willpower is this energy, I'm gonna force myself to take action. I'm gonna force myself to do the thing.

[00:06:58] Brad Bizjack: And that's like a battery. It drains, and drains, and it drains. It's this push energy. It's this I'm going to force it energy. And that works really well until it really doesn't. And you have no juice left, and then people get into a place of burnout. And burnout, I see this all the time happen, especially in this space.

[00:07:15] Brad Bizjack: People say, "I'm burnt out. I have no energy left. I don't have the motivation. I'm burnt out." Burnout is actually a really beautiful gift because now your soul is getting involved and telling you to stop lying to yourself, Burnout is a time when all of a sudden your actions have been out of alignment with where you're really meant to go, and finally you're starting to recognize the pain of that.

[00:07:34] Brad Bizjack: And so when people wait for motivation, they're just waiting forever for something to come up, so they're basically guaranteeing that their life doesn't change because motivation comes and it goes. So what we need to do- Is to rely on something far more sustainable than motivation, which is a change in identity, a change in beliefs, a change in values.

[00:07:50] Brad Bizjack: Because when we change those beliefs, those values, those identities, that is what allows us to cascade down from there a natural behavior change. A good example of this is someone that says, "I'm lazy," versus, "I'm an athlete," right? Behavior change let's think about an athlete. T- they're naturally going to take their health and fitness more seriously than someone that believes that they're lazy.

[00:08:11] Brad Bizjack: That makes common sense. But the reason isn't because they have more motivation. The reason is because it's their standard, and the reason it's their standard is because that's what they believe. And so if we reverse everything back from the subconscious forces going on behind the scenes, we can recognize that you change the operating system, then all of a sudden the programming runs differently.

[00:08:31] Brad Bizjack: I like to look at it from the perspective of a computer. It's a good metaphor. I have a MacBook or I have a iMac, and the top right corner of my computer every couple of months I get this little notification that says, " Hey Brad, updates are available." And I'm like, "Remind me tomorrow." And then the next day it pops up.

[00:08:50] Brad Bizjack: "Updates are available." "Remind me tomorrow. Remind me tomorrow." And I go on and just clicking remind me tomorrow for months, and next thing you know The video program doesn't open, or there's the spinny wheel of death that shows up, for a really long time, and things are crashing. And, then you have that diagnostic report that you should send to Apple and all this stuff, and you're like, "What's going on with my computer?"

[00:09:10] Brad Bizjack: And so you call up Apple, and you're like, "I'm gonna give them a piece of my mind," right? Or, "I'm gonna ask them for help," or whatever it is. And you call them up, and they're like did you update your software?" And you're like, "No." They're like, "Okay, let's try that. Let's update our software." You update your software.

[00:09:22] Brad Bizjack: Now everything works fine. And so those... That's a metaphor for motivation. The programs working successfully is the byproduct of working on the operating system, and then everything flows well from there. So I believe motivation is an effect, not a cause. I realize that's a polarizing viewpoint. And I believe that all starts with changing what's going on behind the scenes in the subconscious mind.

[00:09:45] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. And I'll highlight and underline something that you s- said indirectly, I think, which is that motivation requires momentum because you said motivation requires action, right? And we are often waiting for motivation to strike. Thinking a little bit, you, you gave... You mentioned this just a little bit, and I think that this is really relevant, so I'm gonna have you drill in just a little bit on it about the different types of motivation overall.

[00:10:09] Christa Biegler, RD: You mentioned, I think you were talking about pushing yourself, right? So when you're feeling out of alignment in general but you feel like you must do something is when I feel that we have the most tension toward doing that thing. Will you talk a little bit about this? 

[00:10:22] Brad Bizjack: Yeah. 

Push vs Pull Inspiration

[00:10:23] Brad Bizjack: Push versus pull. Push is this energy of I'm going to push this boulder up a hill, so hopefully I can get it to the top.

[00:10:31] Brad Bizjack: It is exhausting. It's very hard. Pull motivation, otherwise known as inspiration, is where it's almost like you're chasing after that boulder because you have so much energy and drive and momentum. You're pulled towards something bigger. You're pulled towards a cause. You're pulled towards an outcome, something that inspires you that is typically a reflection of your spirit.

[00:10:52] Brad Bizjack: And when... There are times when, of course, you have to rely on the push motivation. If you get horrible sleep and your kid's up all night sick or whatever it is, the next day and you're exhausted and you have, all these meetings, sure, tap into that battery of push motivation. There's nothing wrong with that.

[00:11:08] Brad Bizjack: The problem happens when people rely on that because then everything is this effort. And what's happening when you rely on this push motivation, 'cause it's painful, is you're training your brain to perceive that action needs to be painful. So when you think of going bigger or what you want to create next, you have an association that's gonna mean more pain, more effort, more sacrifice.

[00:11:31] Brad Bizjack: And so every time you rely on push motivation, you're training yourself to not want the thing you want. And so it becomes absolutely exhausting. Whereas pull, inspiration is this is something that sets my soul on fire. The very thought of it makes my heart beat faster. I get the passion sweats thinking about it.

[00:11:50] Brad Bizjack: It is not hard for me to take action because I'm being pulled by it. And I think a lot of times people are very out of alignment with that. They tone down what they really want to be more realistic and safe because they've failed before, or someone told them they can't, or they don't think they have the qualifications or certifications to do something.

[00:12:07] Brad Bizjack: And so they set these safe, realistic, boring goals that don't actually drive them, and they wonder why they're not motivated Why they don't have the inspiration to go after something is because they, the people are like, "I'm lazy." You're not lazy, you just have crappy goals. You're not, you don't actually, aren't going after what your heart really wants. 

[00:12:28] Brad Bizjack: And people will say to me all the time I don't know what I want." Yes, you do. You know what you don't want, so you know what you do want. Everyone knows what they want, they're just afraid to admit it, and they're setting their goals and dreams based on the past. And when you use the past as a a, a measurement tool for what's possible in the future, you create more of the same.

[00:12:48] Brad Bizjack: You can look through the front windshield or you can look in the rear view mirror, and most people run their life through looking in the rear view mirror instead of the front windshield, and the front windshield is way bigger, but most people don't look through it. So anyways, I can go on and on about that, but that's my perspective on push versus pull.

[00:13:04] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. I was just thinking through that a little bit. You were talking about pull being inspiration, and it's another word would be how can I get excited about this thing, right? And one thing we see all the time is that most of the time we set goals or say we want something, I'm just reiterating something you said, from what we don't want.

[00:13:26] Christa Biegler, RD: I know I, and I want to get tangible because it's fun to have. I love your analogies and I love making it super tangible. I don't want, I'll use one from my personal life. I don't want to be in eight meetings a day- ... where I don't get anything else done. I, it would be easy for me to say that.

[00:13:42] Christa Biegler, RD: Instead I say I do want the flexibility that if my kid needs me for X, Y, Z thing, I don't have to cancel four appointments, right? Yeah. Or or I do want the flexibility to be able to be ready to go on blah blah blah with my husband when he finishes whatever he has with his work, right? So focusing on this excitement piece or what I do want overall.

[00:14:05] Christa Biegler, RD: I love thinking about this from an inspiration piece, but you said something we're gonna circle through a, circle around identity quite a bit, 'cause something that is a little bit tricky is we all are operating out of our identity, but sometimes we actually haven't f- we haven't identified how we identify as humans.

[00:14:26] Christa Biegler, RD: And I'm gonna give a really practical example because once upon a time I remember talking to coaches or different productivity or success coaches about I want to, I would say I want to... It's funny 'cause it almost sounds really, conflicting when I'm even trying to share it. I want to work out, but I don't work out, right?

[00:14:45] Christa Biegler, RD: I don't do the thing I say I want to do, right? And I remember that one of the coaches one time said, "Oh, it's because you don't identify as an athlete." 

[00:14:53] Brad Bizjack: Ooh. I was like, "

[00:14:54] Christa Biegler, RD: Damn straight I don't identify as an athlete." But you said you said something in there about you identify... I don't know if you used the word athlete or not, but you said something about- 

[00:15:03] Christa Biegler, RD: Either identify with being lazy or identify... Maybe you said athlete. Athlete. Yeah. I'm gonna use athlete. And I would say I didn't identify with being lazy, but I didn't identify with being an athlete. So- ... for a while Krista was like, "All right, an athlete would wanna go work out. An athlete would wanna do this.

[00:15:17] Christa Biegler, RD: An athlete would wanna do that." And I... And it was actually funny because it was a little bit of a push. It was it was hilarious. So I kinda wanna use this what seems to be a smaller example of updating that ener- updating that identity, updating the desire to exer- 'cause I think this is a really common situation where people- would say, "I know exercise is good for me, and I don't wanna do the thing 'cause it's actually painful." So I wanna talk a little bit about generating... what it might look like to generate some of that pull motivation- ... that inspiration, that excitement for the thing. Because this is a very tangible, real thing that affects a lot of people, and if it shows up here it may show up in other places.

[00:16:02] Christa Biegler, RD: And so can we talk through some strategies for a human finding inspiration around this, finding some- Not a 

[00:16:10] Brad Bizjack: robot? ... 

[00:16:10] Christa Biegler, RD: inspiration. Yeah, not a robot. 

[00:16:13] Christa Biegler, RD: Allow me to interrupt this episode to share about a misunderstood nutrient that has given me some really cool results, and that's vitamin K2. Now, most people only know about vitamin K1 because of its blood clotting abilities, but vitamin K2 is a totally different animal. Vitamin K2 is known for bone health, but there's also a number of studies that show how useful it is in cardiovascular health and improving cardiac output in athletes, so in other words, performance.

[00:16:39] Christa Biegler, RD: With those mechanisms in mind, I started vitamin K2 before a high elevation hiking trip and had zero altitude sickness. The other thing I've used it for is sluggish thyroid. For years, I've seen calcium stuck in the tissue on hair tissue mineral analysis testing with sluggish thyroid clients, including myself.

[00:16:56] Christa Biegler, RD: Vitamin K2 is one of the most important nutrients to help calcium get where it needs to go instead of impairing thyroid function. This is a very mineral-specific nuance that can make a big difference if you don't wanna have relapsing gut issues from the sluggish motility that comes along with this subclinical sluggish thyroid issue situation that is very rampant, very common.

[00:17:17] Christa Biegler, RD: Jigsaw Health has a vitamin K2 plus E complex marketed for bone health, but that vitamin E will support the cell membrane so the nutrients can get into the cell. So it's a very nice two-for-one product, but I would also do two caps of this product, as a lot of the health benefits associated with vitamin K2 are for 100 micrograms.

[00:17:36] Christa Biegler, RD: So two caps of Jigsaw's vitamin K2 plus E is gonna get you there. You can get 10% off of any order at jigsawhealth.com with the code LESSSTRESSED10. Any time, any place, repeat orders, code LESSSTRESSED10.

[00:17:51] Brad Bizjack: Yeah. I wanna start with a question for everyone listening, and it's: What would you go after if you had three times the courage, three times the time, and three times the energy?

[00:18:00] Brad Bizjack: And start there 

[00:18:02] Brad Bizjack: Cause chances are people are basing their outcomes on what they currently have as limitations, right? So what the kids' schedule is, what the, all those things, right? And what their business demands them, what- whatever, right? So if you go after- Did you 

[00:18:15] Christa Biegler, RD: include time? You said courage- I did

[00:18:17] Christa Biegler, RD: energy. Okay, cool 

[00:18:18] Brad Bizjack: Courage, energy, and time. What would you be after? Three times the courage, three times the energy, and three times the time. And I'm willing to bet the thing that you state is also the thing that you don't currently believe is possible, right? And there's nothing wrong with that. You don't have to believe it yet, but if that can become the target, that's what we're going after.

[00:18:35] Brad Bizjack: But if the target becomes more of the same, then nothing changes. You don't have to change. You don't create more energy in your life. There's no inspiration to do anything. Inspiration, in my opinion, becomes possible when we are pulled by something we have not yet attained or become. And so if you're setting your outcomes based on your existing reality, then there is no inspiration there.

[00:19:03] Brad Bizjack: It's just- ... this is. The hunger for what we would create is what creates the inspiration. So then, okay, we identify that thing. That thing has resistance. Cool. Nothing wrong with that thing having resistance. We don't just sit there and kumbaya our way to success and say, "Okay, this person is..." Like an athlete, right?

[00:19:20] Brad Bizjack: I am an athlete, I am an athlete, I am an athlete, and then your brain goes have you seen your legs? Have you seen your stomach? Your, have you seen your strength?" Your brain talks you... I am abundance. Have you seen your bank account, right? I am worthy. Are you sure? And so the brain challenges you because the strongest force in the human personality is the need to stay consistent with who you already think you are.

[00:19:40] Brad Bizjack: And so these big dreams, these big outcomes require a different version of you, but everything in your subconscious is fighting like crazy to keep you the exact same. And so if you just sit there and use affirmations and say, "I am an athlete," if, in the example of, what you shared- ... your brain's gonna go, "Nah."

[00:19:59] Brad Bizjack: But if you ask yourself questions- 

[00:20:02] Brad Bizjack: Your brain has to find an answer. Think of your brain like ChatGPT, right? I used to use Google in this example, but that's different now. Whatever you prompt it with, it will give you a response. Most people are asking very disempowering questions. Why is my day so hard?

[00:20:20] Brad Bizjack: Why is it so hard to find motivation? Why do I keep overeating? And your brain will come up with the most random stuff because you're a pig, right? It will come up with an answer to whatever you ask it. So we might as well ask intelligently. So if we identify what that thing is, three times occurs, three times the energy, three times the time, there's typically an identity associated with it, and we can ask ourselves, "How can I become that person today?

[00:20:42] Brad Bizjack: What are the actions that this type of person would take?" And so instead of saying, "I am an athlete," you're giving your brain a task to reverse engineer from that identity, and then you move in that general direction. It becomes a lot easier. And plus, you'll find way more energy associated with that outcome or that identity.

[00:21:01] Brad Bizjack: One of the biggest mistakes people make in... And we talked a little bit about this already, but one of the biggest mistakes people make in setting their dreams and goals is being realistic. I think realism is the fastest traveled road to mediocrity. I think it is a... I don't- I'm not saying don't look at your numbers and take an honest look at your business and your career and life as is.

[00:21:20] Brad Bizjack: I'm not saying don't be realistic in that way. I'm saying when you're dreaming, realism has no place, because when you're being realistic, you don't have to change anything about you. You don't need to shift at all. So when you are being unrealistic in your dreams and goals, you recognize the purpose of a dream and a goal is not to hit it.

[00:21:37] Brad Bizjack: It's to raise your energy and to become a new person, and from that higher level state, you're more likely to take more empowered actions. Now, here's the key, though. If we want to reinforce that identity, which most people don't do, most people make the mistake of celebrating at an outcome, and they think that I'm gonna celebrate when?

[00:21:59] Brad Bizjack: If you don't celebrate little things along the way, there's not gonna be very many big things to celebrate. And so we th- we talked about self-sabotage last time. It's not real. It's actually self-preservation. What's really going on is your brain's trying to keep you in the same spot. So this next level version of you is unfamiliar.

[00:22:18] Brad Bizjack: Your survival brain's desire is to keep you safe, so it wants to keep doing what's familiar, and that's what you've been doing. So this idea of doing these bigger actions is scary. When you take a step towards it after asking those questions, the key then is to reward yourself for the action taken.

[00:22:37] Brad Bizjack: Because what's happening is you are then associating pleasure with movement towards this identity and this outcome. And if we associate pleasure with movement towards identity and this outcome, the brain no longer views it as much of a threat. And we do this over and over again, it becomes way more simple and easy to move in the direction of the outcome you're after, and all of a sudden you have motivation all day because it was not the cause, it was the effect 

[00:23:01] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah.

[00:23:01] Christa Biegler, RD: I love it, and I'm gonna bring it down to just simple terms. I'm thinking in real terms, right? So when I'm going to exercise, I'm thinking about pleasure associated with it. I'm like, oh, I'm gonna go. And this is in true... I think sometimes people do things from a punishment lens or a pleasure lens, right?

[00:23:19] Christa Biegler, RD: And so it's oh, I can't wait to do this thing, 'cause I know I'm gonna feel better after the fact, and then I'm gonna enjoy my coffee on the deck with the birds. So I'm actually excited to get it done before that. And I also think a lot of what we're talking about right now is circling around possibility, and I was reflecting as you were talking about a lot of time.

[00:23:37] Christa Biegler, RD: So my life has exponentially changed over the last couple of years just because of witnessing more possibility. And so an example I might have is going to conferences and seeing people talk about different things that out, were outside of my realm of possibility before, because I hadn't surrounded myself with it.

[00:23:55] Christa Biegler, RD: So if we don't know something exists, then we don't really think it's possible, right? Or if we haven't seen it in ourselves. And a very simple version of that I think about with exercise is I love following mature, older women, 70s and 80s- ... on Instagram that have... I just obs- ob- I'm obsessed with pivot stories or comeback kid stories- or I changed my life stories, right? In adversity, right? Because if I think about, one word that you haven't used but gets used a lot is oh, what is the vision here? And I remind myself that the vision is that I wanna be able to hike this really cool hike with water all over the rocks without a cane, because one of the times I did this hike a year ago, I was like, oh my gosh, these poor people are really struggling to do this hike.

[00:24:42] Christa Biegler, RD: I would be very fearful doing this hike if I was using a cane, et cetera, et cetera. And so actually, I think that vision... I- you sometimes we forget about our vision related to something that's even though exercise is a weekly activity, right? Like a multiple week activity, you'd think I would revisit the vision there sometimes.

[00:24:59] Christa Biegler, RD: But until we were talking about it, I was like, oh, I forgot that was my vision sometimes. I forgot that it's hiding under there overall. Yeah. 

Toxic Positivity and Better Affirmations

[00:25:05] Christa Biegler, RD: But I wanna mention, I wanna branch into something that you were dancing around as we started talking about this one tangible concept. You were- You were joking around about the, "I am an athlete," right?

[00:25:16] Christa Biegler, RD: These toxic positivity affirmations, right? Let's talk about toxic positivity, and I think this is super useful and relevant. I can't wait to talk a little bit more about high-quality questions as well. This is one of my deeply held beliefs is that your quality of life is your quality of questions. But I think these are very related.

[00:25:33] Christa Biegler, RD: In the coaching world, one of the things we get to do is we rewire our thoughts around something, right? They- but they have to be true, and that's the ch- that's the toxic positivity part is so often affirmations don't work because we're like, "I actually don't believe this." Yeah. I don't believe that I am an athlete.

[00:25:49] Christa Biegler, RD: These were the only options, lazy and athlete?

[00:25:54] Christa Biegler, RD: Can I get option C, please? I haven't figured out what that was. 

[00:25:59] Brad Bizjack: Oh, my goodness. Yeah, I could riff on this for hours. And the reason I can riff on this for hours is because I didn't realize until a couple years ago that I used to teach, I used to teach toxic positivity. 

[00:26:10] Brad Bizjack: And I made that mistake for a very long time.

[00:26:12] Brad Bizjack: I was the guy that was like, "It's fine. It'll be fine," right? And I do believe in my heart of hearts that it will always work out, that, you will always be provided for, but what I mean is I was going to my garden and going, "There are no weeds here," and just expecting weeds to disappear. 

[00:26:30] Brad Bizjack: And it was, what it was avoidance of discomfort, which by the way, is what ADHD is.

[00:26:34] Brad Bizjack: It's avoidance of discomfort. And and we can go deeper into that if you want to. I have a polarizing opinion on that but we can go that direction too. It's avoidance of... I- it's pretending everything's fine so I don't have to feel the pain associated with change or come face to face with what's been up until now.

[00:26:52] Brad Bizjack: A great example of this is I was working with a coach years ago, this is probably eight years ago, 10 years ago, and she was just checking in on me, seeing how things were going. And I was like, I didn't get this done, I didn't get that done, but it's fine. It's fine. I'll be okay. I'll figure it out.

[00:27:07] Brad Bizjack: It's fine. It's fine." She goes, "Whoa, like, where's all that compensation coming from?" And I'm like, "When is that? I'll figure it out. It's good. Don't worry about it. I'll be fine," right? That sort of energy. And she goes, "No what are you avoiding, Brad?" And I was like, "Nothing, it's fine. I'll figure it out.

[00:27:21] Brad Bizjack: It's all good," right? And she goes, "No, you're avoiding some sort of emotion." And I was like, "No, I'm not." She's like, "Yes, you are." And she's "Are you avoiding discomfort?" "No." "Are you avoiding frustration?" "No." "Are you avoiding anger?" "I don't get angry."

[00:27:43] Brad Bizjack: And it just came out of me, and she goes, "Huh, that's interesting, Brad. Why is it wrong to feel angry?" Because my mom used to get angry. I made a promise that I was never going to act that way. And she asked me a very powerful question. She said Brad, couldn't anger be a very resourceful emotion at times?"

[00:28:01] Brad Bizjack: Not always, but as in certain situations, yeah. And I think about if someone was doing something to my kid, anger would be a very valuable fuel source in that moment. And so part of the human experience is this full breadth of emotions. We typically avoid the uncomfortable ones, and we re- we don't recognize that the more that we avoid those uncomfortable ones, the more they own us, 'cause whatever you avoid controls you.

[00:28:23] Brad Bizjack: And we just grasp onto this desperation and clinging to this empowering emotion without ever feeling it fully because we're not actually processing the things that happen on the uncomfortable side. And so this is what I think a lot of times people do with toxic positivity. They pretend everything is fine so they don't have to feel the discomfort associated with the emotions that are bubbling up beneath the surface that they've pushed down and pushed down, that are owning them and controlling them.

[00:28:46] Brad Bizjack: And we can go down that tangent, but to your point of affirmations, what we can do if we really wanna find an affirmation that works is actually start with the affirmation of what you don't want. Start with the negative. Start with what you are calling yourself, and say it out loud three times. Say say that out loud and ask, "What's coming up for me when I say this?"

[00:29:10] Brad Bizjack: And typically there's an icky feeling. Where do you feel it in your body, right? Scale of one to 10 where do you feel it? Then you say it out loud again. Follow that same process. What's coming up for you? Where do you feel it in your body? Scale of one to 10. Do it again. Say it out loud. And you'll notice something happens after the third time where you're like, "That's not actually true."

[00:29:26] Brad Bizjack: Then what you can do is you can add the breath in. I think this is a really powerful, tangible way to find affirmations that will work for you and give you way more, w- and are way more potent. And when you take a big diaphragmic breath and then say that disempowering, call it affirmation, whatever you would call it, you'll notice...

[00:29:47] Brad Bizjack: And you go through the same process. Where do you feel it in your body? Emotional intensity. What's present for you? You'll notice that it starts to feel not true. And you do this three times. You'll notice it's not true, and you ask yourself the question what is true?" And you'll listen to that little burst of intuition that tells you the truth.

[00:30:05] Brad Bizjack: The truth is this. I am this. That becomes your new affirmation. You take a breath, big deep breath, say the new affirmation. What's coming up for you? Where do you feel it in your body, scale of one to 10? You do that three times, and you'll have found an affirmation that will actually move you in the direction of what you know is aligned with your heart.

[00:30:25] Brad Bizjack: And so a lot of times people will just try to jump to, "I'm an Olympian," right? 

Perfectionism And Suppressed Anger

[00:30:30] Brad Bizjack: And they haven't moved through the disempowerment yet that I believe is required to get to the empowerment. Just my opinion. 

[00:30:40] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. I think the example you gave about I don't get angry is really resonant.

[00:30:47] Christa Biegler, RD: I've observed this in myself and in others now for a number of years, and the thing that concerns me is that there's a s- there's a population set, it might be a very large one, where we are like, "Let us shove down all of the emotions," right? "Let us cover them all up and wear a shell as self-preservation and protection-" Yeah

[00:31:08] Christa Biegler, RD: overall. And I think this shows up a lot in perfectionism. I know we talked about perfectionism a lot last time. I don't remember if it was related to this, but it's, I think this is common, and I, for me, the first time that I felt very called out by this. So that was your story of feeling really called out by the coach, and mine was I actually saw something online where it said that impatience, if you say that you're impatient, it's really anger.

[00:31:34] Christa Biegler, RD: And I was like- ... excuse me. 

[00:31:37] Brad Bizjack: You're like, "I'm mad at you for that." 

[00:31:39] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah, like I'm angry about the... No, I just was like, I, it was very, it was like someone saw me naked or something, right? When I saw that, it was like very alarming. And so I think that's a gift, right? Because I think the hardest thing I see in humanity is when we're unconscious of our stuff, of our blocks, of our things that are really running the show, and that's the under thread running through here.

[00:32:04] Christa Biegler, RD: And so if someone resonated with either one of those stories, but they've they have a belief that it's not okay, you said it really beautifully it's not okay to feel angry, right? And it was interesting because there was actually a couple emotions at play in your story. You didn't wanna feel angry because that used to happen with your mom, so you didn't feel angry, and so it was really a fear of anger.

[00:32:28] Christa Biegler, RD: Really? What a cute little- Yeah ... like emotional pie that you were. 

[00:32:31] Brad Bizjack: Yeah. 

[00:32:32] Christa Biegler, RD: And it's like the most common, it's really like fear is probably the dominant emotion running our stuff. But we won't, we don't call it that all the time, right? And so I'd like to talk about healthy ways to become more conscious of that.

[00:32:48] Christa Biegler, RD: How do we become more conscious of what's really running the show or underneath overall, right? Because we may, 'cause what we present on the outside is like, I'm going to avoid doing my work because I have ADHD, or I'm gonna avoid... And I think that there are physiological reasons. I think that like anything with a label, a symptom, a diagnosis, I always talk about for Health Triad, it's like there's the physiological stuff, and then there's the emotional and v- and energetic stuff, and sometimes this other structural part.

[00:33:16] Christa Biegler, RD: And so you can talk about it from both angles. And so anyway, I wanna talk about how we shove this down, healthy ways to unearth this or to bring something that's underneath into consciousness, and maybe healthy, maybe some opportunities of how we start to address or deal with that. Because I think our gut reaction is if it's not safe to feel angry or it's not okay or it's not approved or it's not good, I think about women and a lot of perfectionists, it's not good to be angry, so I'm gonna like smear frosting, toxic positivity frosting over the top or sweetness over the top.

[00:33:51] Christa Biegler, RD: But really underneath- The cream on garbage ... I'm like, I'm gonna go ahead and b- outlash or, blow up at my kids or something, right? And let's talk through, excavating this and what it might look like to deal with that. Is it really anger? Is it really these things instead of...

[00:34:07] Christa Biegler, RD: that we're avoiding re- versus something else? 

Triggers And The Inner Thorn

[00:34:11] Brad Bizjack: I have three ways to answer this question, and I'm excited about all three, and please reel me in if I ramble too long. There's there's a really amazing book called The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. Book changed my life, and he gives an example of something called the inner thorn.

[00:34:31] Brad Bizjack: A lot of people live their life trying not to get triggered, right? I want to trigger you, and the reason I want to trigger you is because then we'll find the thing that actually needs work because a trigger is just a piece of your heart that hasn't healed yet. It's all it is. It's causing you can ca- look at it from the nervous system perspective, it's just an activation of your nervous system, and your sympathetic state is activated, right?

[00:34:50] Brad Bizjack: You could look at it from the emotional perspective, where it's a, a spiritual pain that needs to be processed, right? But either way, I believe it's a piece of your heart that hasn't healed yet. And what he talks about in his book is how you're going through the woods and you get hit by this thorn in your arm, and it would make sense if a thorn goes into your arm to take that thorn out, right?

[00:35:09] Brad Bizjack: But it's painful to take that thorn out. So what we do is we go about life trying to make sure that thorn doesn't get touched, and we'll build up little contraptions around this thorn and try one thing, it doesn't work. Try another thing, it doesn't work. And eventually, we build up this massive contraption so that stuff doesn't hit our thorn, right?

[00:35:27] Brad Bizjack: We'll move to a new city. We'll avoid these people. We'll cut people out of our life, whatever it is. And, and-

[00:35:40] Brad Bizjack: Protect against that thorns will say something along the lines of, "That thorn doesn't impact me. It doesn't control my life anymore." But it controls your entire life. Everything you do is about avoiding this thorn from getting hit. Everything. And so at the end of the day, it all comes back to you need to pull this thorn out.

[00:36:02] Brad Bizjack: Now, at this point, when you pull this thorn out, there's a little bit of an infection, right? You could touch it with a little feather and it would still hurt really bad. But at the end of the day, it's not going to avoid the fact that if you want to live a fulfilling life, you need to pull that thorn out.

[00:36:15] Brad Bizjack: Which leads to how do we actually process this? How do we move through it? And there's the look at this from the traumatic perspective and the events that happened and processing those, and there's so many ways that you can get through that actually very easily and gently without having to go to years and years of therapy.

[00:36:33] Brad Bizjack: And nothing against therapy, just without having to do that. There's ways to do that. But there's also the, the little things on a daily basis, like the emotion side that you're leading to, and that leads to number two, which is the greatest way to get rid of these uncomfortable, I don't call them negative, uncomfortable emotions, is to welcome them with open arms.

[00:36:51] Brad Bizjack: It's the greatest way to make them go away faster. If I'm sitting in bed at night at 2:00 AM, and all of a sudden I wake up and I start getting anxious, and I shouldn't be anxious, I should be sleeping. Why aren't I sleeping? I get... And my heart starts beating faster, and I want so badly for my partner to wake me, wake up and comfort me, but I don't wanna be perceived as weak, so I suffer in silence.

[00:37:11] Brad Bizjack: And then I start getting anxious about my anxiety, and I get feelings about my feelings, and next thing it snowballs into a panic attack at 2:30 in the morning, and I don't know what to do. It's because we made anger wrong Whatever you resist persists. We're not accepting what is, and to the degree in which you accept what is the degree in which you have the ability to change it.

[00:37:30] Brad Bizjack: If I were to sit there at 2:00 in the morning, wake up, and I notice that my heart's beating a little bit faster, that I'm experiencing the emotion of anxiety, and instead of making it wrong, I welcome it. And I say, "Okay, I'm experiencing anxiety." Not, "I am anxious," 'cause it's not your identity. You are not anxiety.

[00:37:49] Brad Bizjack: You are not depression. You are not ADHD. I am experiencing anxiety. That's okay. I must care a lot about the future. The pressure gauge goes down instantly. It's no longer wrong to experience the emotion of anxiety or anger or whatever it is, frustration, worry. It's a very beautiful part of the human experience that gives you contrast.

[00:38:16] Brad Bizjack: Without, without darkness, there is no light. And so it gives you more of the human experience, a more relatable way of going through life. And so we start to welcome these emotions. 

RULER Method For Emotions

[00:38:28] Brad Bizjack: So then comes the third thing, which is, how do you actually process them when they show up? And what a lot of people do, and this is something that can make tactical and tangible for you to where it's not something that is just kumbaya and in the clouds and ethereal, it's actually real, and it's this idea of most people make the mistake of dealing with emotions by pretending they don't exist or just trying to jump to gratitude, right?

[00:38:51] Brad Bizjack: And... Or using contrast therapy. I couldn't... It's not as bad as this." I think we need to process them. And so there's an acronym that I wanna give everyone here called RULER, R-U-L-E-R. The R stands for recognize it. It's what emotion is this, right? Is this worry? Is this anxiety? Whatever it is, give it a label.

[00:39:10] Brad Bizjack: The U stands for understand it. Okay, why am I experiencing that? Is that actually anger, or am I actually hurt? Getting curious about it, asking questions about it, which leads to L, which is label it, which is the same thing as number one just with more information. That whole first three letters takes about 17 seconds.

[00:39:30] Brad Bizjack: You give the emotion an actual name. This is the emotion of whatever, right? Overwhelm, anxiety. Most people wanna skip to the good part, but next comes the E, which is express it There is a reason why you feel better after a good cry. There is a reason why you feel better after going to a boxing class.

[00:39:53] Brad Bizjack: There's a reason you feel better after journaling. It is because an emotion, energy in motion, is getting out of you. It is a ball of energy that is trying to get out that most people just push back down. And if we express it without consequence, key is without consequence... For example, if I'm experiencing the emotion of anger, I could yell at my kid, but that has a very bad consequence.

[00:40:18] Brad Bizjack: Or I could go scream into a pillow. I could go for a, a sprint workout. I could lift weights or whatever. And so you wanna make sure it doesn't have consequence to other people or whatever. Express the emotion. Get the energy, the ball of energy out of your body, and then you get to the R, which is regulate it.

[00:40:38] Brad Bizjack: Then it's what am I grateful for? Then it's what am I focused on now? Then it's the next step. A lot of people just try to skip to the good part without expressing the energy of the d- the uncomfortable emotion, and if you express the energy of the uncomfortable emotion, it will no longer own you, and the only way to do that is to welcome it whenever it comes up.

[00:40:56] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. That's good. I haven't heard that acronym before. Maybe it's yours. It's recognize... I was thinking when you were giving the example of waking up with anxiety, I was actually mapping what you were saying. I was like, oh, you're being curious, and then you have... You're being kind to yourself with true safety, but recognize it.

[00:41:13] Christa Biegler, RD: Oh, this is... Oh, this is anxiety. Oh, understand it. Why I'm experiencing that. Oh, I really care about this. I actually missed L. Label it. What was L? Label it. Oh, okay. This is anx- at first it's like- This is interesting, right? Label it. Express it, right? Which, I, with expressing the anxiety in the middle of the night since I'm going through that e- specific example.

[00:41:36] Christa Biegler, RD: So anger was a good one. You gave s- several examples for that. Do you have any advice for the person up at 2:00 AM with anxiety for expressing anxiety? 

[00:41:44] Brad Bizjack: Write the worries in a notebook. 

[00:41:46] Christa Biegler, RD: Beautiful. Beautiful. 

[00:41:47] Brad Bizjack: Write them in the notebook, and then have a good cry about it. 

[00:41:50] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. 

[00:41:50] Brad Bizjack: Let it out. Yeah. I 

[00:41:52] Christa Biegler, RD: love it.

[00:41:52] Christa Biegler, RD: Love it. And then R is regulate. We've actually done quite a lot on this show about emotion stored in the body becoming pain.

[00:42:00] Brad Bizjack: Oh, yes ... 

[00:42:01] Christa Biegler, RD: and then using, N- Nicole Sachs was on one time talking about literally journeying journaling as a way to relieve pain, and there's a back surgeon I've had on three times, and his story was that he became...

[00:42:14] Christa Biegler, RD: He started to have the symptoms that his patients had. I've seen this other phenomenon with doctors twice before as well. But he started having those same symptoms, and he was really... And he's such a surgical brain, very logical, right? Very just black and white in a lot of ways. And I remember reading in his story, he's like, "I just couldn't believe that 50% of my pain was gone the next day after I just expressed this and wrote about it," right?

[00:42:38] Christa Biegler, RD: And I share that because it's this hits us all. It just hits us all at different times and points, et cetera, right? 

[00:42:43] Brad Bizjack: Can I add one thing to this, Chris, really quick? Please. Of course. I think it'll be really valuable. I'm guessing a lot of people listening to this, this show have the gift of empathy.

[00:42:51] Brad Bizjack: And the ability to relate to what others are experiencing. And if you are an empath and you can, experience the feelings of others, one of the things that can really help you is to ask the simple question, is this even mine? 

[00:43:04] Brad Bizjack: Because a lot of the times we pick up what other people have going on, and we don't even realize it, and just the simple question of, is this even mine?

[00:43:12] Brad Bizjack: If it's not, quickly lowers the pressure gauge. 

[00:43:15] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. I love that. This would be such a good place to end, but I'm not done with you yet. I do have one more thing. Keep it going. Let's do it. 

Recharge Your Motivation Battery

[00:43:21] Christa Biegler, RD: I have one, I have at least one more concept that came up in the beginning. When we first started talking about motivation, you said, when you're excited about something, you said some version of, when you're excited about something you could work for hours.

[00:43:32] Christa Biegler, RD: And I would say that's absolutely true. And as someone who might have some ADHD tendencies, I would also say the only thing is getting in the flow overall. But the re- where I wanna connect this to is you were talking about push motivation as sometimes we have to use this battery, right?

[00:43:49] Christa Biegler, RD: Sometimes we have to f- force ourself. It's like we got stuff to do that we maybe don't wanna do, like maybe answer emails. That's one of mine. And so I love the concept of that being a battery, but it makes sense that would tap out, right? And so if it's if we're running on battery power constantly and not really plugging in to recharge, that's an issue.

[00:44:07] Christa Biegler, RD: And so I think about creativity really supporting getting in the flow. I think about like what recharges this battery, right? And starting to identify that in general. And so I wanted to talk about I think the question I'm trying to ask is recharging the battery so that way you can operate out of a flow state or maybe this creative state and maybe that's part of the, I think that's part of the answer for me is like the recharging happens. It's like what is filling your cup, right? It happens very often we look at creativity, and also it's like a cr- it's a relaxing thing of our brain. Sometimes this whole push motivation is like it does eat up some more, it maybe does eat up some more brain power sometimes, right?

[00:44:43] Christa Biegler, RD: 'Cause we're like really forcing something overall. So the question really is, if we've, if we're using up that battery for pushing sometimes, what is your insight around recharging the battery and/or being excited and getting in the flow? However you wanna go about it. 

[00:45:00] Brad Bizjack: Oh man, I could go so many directions with this.

[00:45:02] Brad Bizjack: I know.

[00:45:03] Christa Biegler, RD: Mean question. 

[00:45:05] Brad Bizjack: Two directions I wanna go The first is more of the spiritual mindset-y, a little bit woo, and the second is tactically how do we actually recharge the battery? I think that this battery often drains when we're focused on the wrong thing. When you are focused on what you go after, you get three times the courage, three times the energy, three times the time.

[00:45:27] Brad Bizjack: It is a renewable fuel source. You do not run out of energy. You are just... You are in flow so much more easily. And I like to think about it like a rocket blasting off. Typically, when someone's trying to create something in their life, in the beginning when they take on personal change or behavior change or something, it's like a rocket blasting off from Earth.

[00:45:47] Brad Bizjack: There's this am- amazing amount of exertion and effort and fuel that's used to get out of the Earth's atmosphere, and that away from energy is typically very helpful in the beginning, especially if we take a look at ADHD. Most oftentimes, if you evaluate people with ADHD, at least in... This is anecdotal based on my own personal experience.

[00:46:13] Brad Bizjack: Almost 100% of the people that I have worked with ADHD, including myself, have had an uncomfortable childhood where there was... They couldn't fight or flight as a kid, so they tuned out, and they went like this. And so whenever something is uncomfortable We tune out. Whenever something's comfortable, we thrive.

[00:46:43] Brad Bizjack: And so I typically find there's this, "I don't want that type of life. I don't want..." There's this away from of what was in the past typically that shows up in most people that I've worked with that have dealt with ADHD, and it's this away from energy, this rocket blasting off into outer space. And people get to a point where that fuel source is no longer sustainable, where if you've seen Apollo 13 where the rocket boosters, or the, you blast off and then the fuel canister falls off, and then there's this weightless moment where the rocket's just sitting there.

[00:47:17] Brad Bizjack: It seems like it's going nowhere, and this is the moment in your life where it feels like, what's the point? It's confusing, almost depressing. Y- you don't really know the direction. And what's happening is you're going through this this experience where the ego, what kept you safe up until now, is no longer a, a viable fuel source for your next level, and you have to let that part of your psychology die, and it's very uncomfortable because what's coming next is a towards fuel source.

[00:47:51] Brad Bizjack: It's a more sustainable fuel source. Like getting out of the Earth's atmosphere was like lighter fluid. We need to find the charcoal. And in Apollo 13, once you find the charcoal, it's pew, gone, right? You're, you take off. And I think a lot of people have to go through that where if we think about energy, typically one of the reasons why people have to recharge their batteries so often is because they're trying to create success with the wrong fuel source, an unsustainable fuel source that got them to where they're on, are now, but what got you here is not gonna get you to the next level, right?

[00:48:21] Brad Bizjack: So we need to find that towards energy that we're moving towards. What would you go after if you had three times the courage, three times the energy, three times the time? It's a towards energy, and it's more sustainable. It burns longer and hotter. And so that's what typically happens in most people when they're going through this when they feel they need to recharge.

[00:48:38] Brad Bizjack: Now to take this down to Earth When someone feels that they need to recharge their batteries, most of the time when I'm having this conversation it actually is from a place of escapism. It's from a place of I'm burnt out, I'm exhausted, I need to escape. And it's at the effect of things. It's all of this has happened, I need to get away.

[00:49:00] Brad Bizjack: Which nothing wrong with getting away. Take a vacation. Cool. But the point I'm trying to make is that we don't want to wait until the battery is empty. We don't want to wait until your phone is out of battery to charge it, and that's what most people do. They wait until the battery is completely drained before they charge it.

[00:49:19] Brad Bizjack: But you don't do that with your phone at night. You plug it in the nightstand even if it's at 60%, right? So if we have the right fuel source, you don't have to worry about this as often, but if you have the wrong fuel source, you need to recharge... You feel like you need to recharge all the time 'cause you're on empty.

[00:49:33] Brad Bizjack: So what do we do? We need to make sure that we have active protocols for recharging on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual basis, and all of those increasing in time away, right? In my opinion. And I don't mean watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine and mindlessly scrolling, right? Although nothing wrong with a little bit of TV time every once in a while, enjoying a show or a movie.

[00:50:03] Brad Bizjack: Nothing wrong with that. What I mean is, does whatever you're doing to recharge actually fill your cup? Or is it avoidance and escapism so you don't have to deal with what you're dealing with? So when most people try to recharge their batteries, they're actually not recharging at all. They're just avoiding what was.

[00:50:22] Brad Bizjack: So we need the activity to be fulfilling. That could be connection with your spouse, going on a walk with your family, sipping coffee with the birds, right? Things like that, that actually fill you with fulfillment and joy. On a weekly basis, it's maybe a little bit more time. It's time of reflection or gratitude or whatever it is, on your weekends or one day a week or whatever it is.

[00:50:41] Brad Bizjack: Monthly, maybe I take a day completely off just to focus on me. Maybe I'm deploying a hobby, whatever it is. Quarterly, am I getting away? Annually, am I getting away for longer? And not just flooding my mind with BS, but actually flooding my mind with things that make me come alive. And so when I am recharging, it is proactive before the battery is drained, it is intentional to bring more energy to the battery, and it is on things that light me up.

[00:51:09] Brad Bizjack: I love building Legos. I love training for races. I love connecting with my wife and having deep conversations. I like phone calls with my buddies. I'll notice that there's this resistance in me when I'm going on a walk outside. I'll... The instinct is to pick up my phone and look at email.

[00:51:27] Brad Bizjack: Or I could call Jim. And there's this resistance to calling Jim, for whatever reason, but that's the thing that would fulfill me, right? It's the thing that actually sets me up for success. And so we don't wanna wait until the battery is empty. That's called burnout, which, like I said, can be a beautiful thing, 'cause your soul's getting involved.

[00:51:43] Brad Bizjack: But you want something active that you're actively doing to recharge intentionally, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually. 

[00:51:52] Christa Biegler, RD: And in order to do that, we have to be able to identify what it is that fills our cup. And along the same lines of what you were saying, one of my ways to phrase this for myself or for others is, how do you do it right here, right now?

[00:52:04] Christa Biegler, RD: Is there... on a regular day, where you're not escaping from your life, where you're not just planning. I do love the planning of the trips, but on a regular day, how do I fill my cup, right? And for me, and I I love to bring this down to the simplicity and the free overall, because it's oh, when I'm able to just see the sun, be with nature for a minute- 

[00:52:23] Christa Biegler, RD: That's really lovely for the filling of the cup, right? Before I have to start answering to other people's things. And when I start to answer to other people's things before I take a few deep breaths in the sunshine, or if there's no sunshine, I come up with my alternatives. Sometimes I let the zero degree weather hit my face as well.

[00:52:39] Christa Biegler, RD: All of those things are, like, the cup filling. But I've, I can only say that because I've spent some time- identifying that overall, right? And so no matter what, part of this is getting curious about yourself, right? Getting curious about your own identity. And we may not have said or use those words all the time, just "Oh, how do I show up," right?

[00:52:57] Christa Biegler, RD: How do I act in this recurrent situation," right? What's happening? Am I an athlete or lazy or whatever the in between version is, right? Oh, the, I'm gonna identify with not having time to exercise. Yeah. Whatever we're gonna label that one is, right? Whatever we're gonna label that, right?

[00:53:13] Christa Biegler, RD: I'm really avoiding the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? So 

[00:53:16] Brad Bizjack: very- Can I add a distinction on this that I think can help? 

[00:53:17] Christa Biegler, RD: Please. Please. 

[00:53:18] Brad Bizjack: I think, what I used to do years ago is I would do these recharge things by myself, right? I'd book a trip to California. But I would find myself getting a six-pack of beer and scrolling what was Facebook back then, right?

[00:53:36] Brad Bizjack: And just looking at things. And I would f- so what I found is even though I planned time to recharge, I would distract myself from what I actually needed as nourishment. Because I think what a lot of people don't recognize is that most people are very uncomfortable being with their own thoughts.

[00:53:54] Brad Bizjack: But that's where the most beautiful things come from. So my recommendation is if you don't know what that thing is, sit in silence Just be, and just notice what comes up, and you'll naturally start gravitating towards the things that light you up. So just sitting and being without any distraction, no phone, no computer, no music, nothing, just being with your thoughts, it goes a long way in identifying what will lift you up.

[00:54:19] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. I think practice for this is going for the walk without the phone if you can. 

[00:54:23] Brad Bizjack: Yeah. 

[00:54:23] Christa Biegler, RD: This is why the bird watching thing has been hilarious to me because I'm like, this is the most incredible free thing for your nervous system that I have been sleeping on for a very long time.

[00:54:34] Christa Biegler, RD: I'm like, oh, what is that thing in nature? I'm not getting distracted by... And again, that's not the same as emptying your thoughts, but it's practice toward that, right? Yeah. If we're, if we have this neural pathway where we're used to picking up the stupid phone over and over my favorite thing, I've mentioned this before on the podcast, is, like, when I would go into the woods on a camping trip and accidentally not have phone service, and then I'd come back and that neural pathway would be broken.

[00:54:55] Christa Biegler, RD: I was like- Yeah ... oh, I need to do this a few more times. 

[00:54:58] Brad Bizjack: Yep. We have hummingbird feeders for a reason. 

[00:55:01] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. 

[00:55:03] Brad Bizjack: Or those bird apps that identify the sound or whatever. I love 

[00:55:06] Christa Biegler, RD: it. So fun. It's- 

[00:55:07] Brad Bizjack: Yeah ... 

[00:55:07] Christa Biegler, RD: such a blast. I actually got a camera hummingbird feeder last week just in time for the migration, and that was a very exciting time for about three days while I had a couple hummingbirds.

[00:55:16] Christa Biegler, RD: Golf 

[00:55:17] Brad Bizjack: clap. 

[00:55:17] Christa Biegler, RD: So yeah. 

[00:55:17] Brad Bizjack: My wife would be very proud of you. 

[00:55:19] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. Oh, we've covered a lot today. We talked a little bit about I love this acronym RULER for helping us process through emotions. That was one of the last things we, we covered. But we talked a little bit about types of motivation. We talked about identity being this thing that sort of is the operating system th- within overall.

[00:55:41] Christa Biegler, RD: We talked about possibility, rewarding yourself for the action taken along the way. High quality questions a little bit. Toxic positivity, why affirmations do or do not work. We talked about getting awa- the away from energy, the escapism. C- we talked about a lot of fun things It was a good one.

[00:55:58] Christa Biegler, RD: Avoidance of discomfort It was a good one. Yeah. Anger. So it was a great thing. 

Success Accelerator And Wrap Up

[00:56:05] Christa Biegler, RD: Brad, what are you excited about right now? What's going on in your life that you'd love to tell people about, and then where can people find you online as well? 

[00:56:09] Brad Bizjack: Yeah. This actually is a really beautiful time that we're doing this.

[00:56:12] Brad Bizjack: Every year I notice kind of a pattern where I'll do really amazing podcast episodes like this, right? And they're very inspirational, but I ran into a problem a couple years ago where I would follow up and people wouldn't, they wouldn't have this experience of lasting change that we had talked about in the podcast.

[00:56:30] Brad Bizjack: And I realized something, that it's because I never gave them experience to- ... implement what we're talking about. And so I took all of these insights, aha moments, everything that I have learned over the last 13 years, and I put them into a five-day challenge called The Success Accelerator. And the whole idea of this is, how do we, number one, identify what we're really after, like the three times example, in all areas of our life?

[00:56:55] Brad Bizjack: What are the invisible blocks, patterns, inner conflicts that are preventing us from actually creating that result? And then over the course of five days, we go to work on breaking those so that you come out of this challenge at a completely new level of possibility and a completely new level of success and deep fulfillment where you don't need something to change in your life before you feel deeply fulfilled.

[00:57:18] Brad Bizjack: And so if you're wondering how these people that are successful seemingly in multiple categories of their life, how they got that way without stress, without adding more to their plate, this is gonna show you how to break that, call it the invisible ceiling that's been holding you in survival mode for such a long time, and how do we live a successful, fulfilling life on our own terms while being deeply fulfilled along the way.

[00:57:39] Brad Bizjack: And so that's what the challenge is really about. It's totally free. It starts the 19th of October. Christa has got the link for you to enroll. That'd be probably the best place for people to really take this and make it actionable and real in their own life with a proven process we've done with almost 100,000 people now.

[00:57:54] Brad Bizjack: And so we've seen the change in thousands and thousands of people. We know it'll work for you, too. So hopefully you'll join us in The Success Accelerator, and we also have the Instagram jam, just @bradbizjack on, on Instagram. But the best place would be the five-day challenge. 

[00:58:08] Christa Biegler, RD: Cool. I love how you presented that.

[00:58:09] Christa Biegler, RD: I'll have that link below the video or in the show notes. So Brad, thanks so much for coming back today and talking to us about all these things. 

[00:58:16] Brad Bizjack: Thanks so much for having me, my friend. Appreciate it.

[00:58:19] Christa Biegler, RD: Thanks for listening to this week's show. For all the links mentioned in this episode, from submitting your questions and comments to picking up The Cortisol Reset or Finally Focused: Mental Clarity on Demand, you can find all of those links in the show notes below this episode. See you next week