Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Start your week smiling with your friends, Kathy's aunt and Michelle Frechette. It's time to get ready for some weekly motivation with WP motivate.
Happy Thursday, Cathy.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: It is indeed Thursday. Happy Thursday.
[00:00:18] Speaker A: How are you?
[00:00:20] Speaker B: I am doing well. Yes, I am well. It is only. Can I just like, say it? It's the end of July.
[00:00:32] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: I am in Texas and it is only 91 degrees. And it's like 03:00 p.m.
i just like it. So.
[00:00:41] Speaker A: So here in western New York, 91 degrees, we call a heat wave. Yeah, yeah.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: Here I'm like, oh, it's only 91. It's not 101.
[00:00:51] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: All right.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: There is a huge difference between 91 and 101. This is true.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Well, a few weeks ago it was 101, but, you know, we were having our little heat wave. Now we have a cool wave, and I am enjoying every minute of it. I mean, I'm still wearing shorts and t shirt, but. Oh yeah, and the air conditioner is on. It was so funny. I was on this, like, call yesterday. Not our call, but a different call. And the woman's like, oh, hold on a second, I need to go turn on the air conditioner. And I'm like, who turns it off? Like, you gotta. You have to go turn it on. She was in like, or something like that, but, and I guess they're having a heat wave, but she was like, oh dear, I need to go turn on the air conditioner. I'm like, geez, what's it like to have it off?
[00:01:38] Speaker A: Seriously? Well, it just got dark here, so I think we're gonna get a storm. But all of a sudden it was like, boom. Oh, no, sun's back. Who knows? It was very fast. Anyway, it's funny because you and I cross paths more than once. Of course, we have our weekly chat here and we dm each other and share memes and fun stuff on other social channels and that kind of thing. But we just talked yesterday as part of the post status happiness hour, a new thing that I'm doing over there.
And of course you talked last week. Last week when we talked was like, literally, I had been crying before we hit record because the cat knocked over the coffee and ruined so many things. And like, I literally sat here recording with you with coffee dripping off my skirt into my slippers.
It's all cleaned up. Everything's happy now, except.
[00:02:29] Speaker B: And now you've got Jeff.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: I do. And I have canned air. Did I tell you about the canned air? The cat is terrified of it. I don't even have to actually spray it. I just have to point it at her. So hopefully this will be. I don't. I don't have any coffee on my desk right now, so we'll just leave it that. Anyway, live and learn, right? Which is what we wanted to talk about today.
[00:02:48] Speaker B: Live and learn. Yes.
[00:02:50] Speaker A: Learning. So I will start by saying, I don't believe in boredom.
When somebody says to me, I'm so bored. I think if you have an opportunity to be bored, you have an opportunity to learn or do, right? So I never, and I will admit, before the dawning of the smartphone, if I had to sit and wait somewhere, I could be bored, right? I could be like, what else can I think about while I'm sitting in here? Like, we all used. We all used to be in the bathroom and read the shampoo container, right? And the aerosol, because that's all we had within reach. And now we bring our phones in there for better, for worse. And, like, we always have something, so I don't care if it's literally, like, scrolling through TikTok. I have learned a lot on TikTok. I know I'm addicted to TikTok. Whatever.
But, like, the stellar event that we had, stellar spark last Friday, I learned from the speakers there. Like, if you have time to be bored, you have time to learn something. And I don't mean, like, I'm going to learn physics this afternoon, any of that kind of thing, or how to, like, figure out a mortgage or any of those, but there's opportunities. And if you have the mindset that if I have time to be bored, I have time to learn, you really do practice being a lifelong learner, which I think is important, too. Right? So I'm 55 years old, and I'm still learning shit. I mean, compost.
[00:04:20] Speaker B: I'm older than you, and I'm still learning shit. So it's just. This is life. Yeah. No, it. I'm always going to be learning or trying to. And it's not even necessarily like learning, although I do enjoy learning new things. I like learning new languages. I like learning new ways of doing a, you know, designing web. I like creative learning, too. You know, I like trying new ways of doing things, innovating new hacking techniques, learning about new, you know, hacking campaigns. Like, that's one of the things I loved about security. So I was like, I'll never get bored. There's no way, because there's. It's just a cat and mouse game. You know, sometimes the. The, you know, red team is doing well, and sometimes the blue team's doing well, but it's always a learning experience. And that's what I loved, going to Defcon and learning about what people were learning, all the new techniques and new exploits, things like that. But I also like shifting perspective, like being in the same environment, but seeing it through a different belief system or a different method of looking at things. So the thing I've been playing with this week is the word value and it's, it's self value, but it's also like looking at other things and feeling the value that's within them. And I had my mind blown this morning because I was, I had to go to the gym. It was like workout day. It was supposed to be Tuesday, but my value in my checkbook went down because I had shop and lost 1200 bucks to that. But I value the repair that hopefully fixes a two year long problem. But I started just like on the way to the gym, I'm like looking at the. And then there was like road work happening and I'm like, look at the value that the city is putting into this road that's been a pain in the butt. And I started just like really shifting how I saw things. I love playing with like, that kind of stuff with reality and just like, how do I perceive things? Because you could change your, like, your whole life just by changing how you perceive the environment you're soaking in.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: Have we talked about Stephen Covey's idea of the paradigm shift before? I don't know if we've mentioned that on this show. If we did, it was so long ago.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:44] Speaker A: In his book, good to great, Stephen Covey talks about the fact that he was on. I'm gonna probably, I'm paraphrasing, so forgive me if I get any of the facts wrong, but he talks about, like, he was on a subway and he's on the subway and he's reading his paper and there's lots of people and there's these two kids that are running up and down the subway car. And people are getting really irritated that these kids are running up and down the subway car. Right. And you see all these people have grumpy looks and the father of these two kids is just sitting there and not doing anything.
And Covey's taking it all in and feeling a little annoyed at the kids, but wondering why the father's not doing anything. And he's looking at the father. The father looks up and their eyes lock and Stephen Covey kind of looks at him. The guy says, I know I should control my kids. But we're on the way to the hospital because their mother just died. And I don't have the heart at this point in time to kill their spirit because it's going to die. It's going to be killed in a little bit anyway. And I just don't have it in me to make them stop right now. Cause they're gonna be stopped in their tracks in a few minutes, in a half an hour, their whole world is gonna change. And Steven says he went from annoyed with these kids and annoyed with the father in the split second to compassion for these kids and compassion for the father and had this what he calls a paradigm shift in the way that you understand things. And so I often, having read that book, gosh, 20 years ago now, I often will put in my head when I'm super annoyed at something, or I don't understand why somebody's acting the way they are. I think, what could be happening in their life to make them behave in this way? Now, sometimes they're still just assholes at the end of the day, right? Like, some people just are spreading negativity everywhere they go. But oftentimes, like, when I think of when I'm grumpy, I'm a nice person. Generally speaking, people like me. But if I'm grumpy and I'm grumpy to somebody, I just left a different impression of who I am with them. And so if I can give other people the grace that I would want somebody to give to me in that circumstance, then that whole idea of the paradigm shift and what you said is actually fits right in there about what that paradigm shift is.
[00:09:03] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, completely. Yeah. And that's. I think when you learn new skills, it shifts your paradigm. It shifts how you value yourself. Right. Because if you learn how to, like, the first. Like, the pride you feel when you first build that first WordPress website all on your own, and, you know, you answered all the questions, you looked everything up, you knew how to do everything, and you figured it out, and there's. There's just some confidence, it shifts your paradigm. So that going through that process of, like, okay, I'm gonna do this big thing. And breaking yourself out of limiting beliefs of what you think is possible and moving into a place where more is possible and more, you can do more, and you believe in yourself more, it shifts the entire paradigm, the entire experience of your life, because then it's like, your reality shows up in a different way. When you shift your paradigm, it really shows up in a different way.
[00:10:00] Speaker A: So.
Yeah, and if you remember how you want people to treat you. I mean, like, yeah, the golden rule do unto others is you'd have them do unto you, whatever. But we don't think about that a lot, right? We think about it when we read that golden whatever, just a parable or whatever it's called. But to actually implement it when you are frustrated and when somebody is really irritating you and you can't. Sure, like, I hate when a waitress calls me hun or sugar or whatever, right? Like, hey hon, how are you doing today? Like, it is like nails on a chalkboard to me. But am I going to say to her, I don't want you to call me that? Of course not. Because like in the grander scheme of things, it's just such a little blip and it doesn't matter. But if I'm dating somebody and they continue to call me a pet name that I really don't like, I'm going to say something because there it matters and it's affecting a relationship. So like all of that, it's all paradigm, it's all how you view the world and how you can change the way that you view the world based on information or thinking about what other information there might be.
[00:11:03] Speaker B: Right? And the key is that I think sometimes when we get in frustrating situations or we get in limiting situations, it's super easy to just feel like down or to feel like, well, this limit, there's no way out. Or to feel like, well, I'm painted in a corner and this is what it means. And we start assigning meaning to the, to an experience. And I, I think we have a lot more control over the thoughts we think, the emotions that we feel.
And I think our emotions come from the thoughts that we think. Like, of course, when I was sick a couple weeks ago, I was super sick. And I think we recorded early that week and it was a good thing we did because I was just down for the count and I got so one of the most depressive episodes just for one day. And I'm like, what is wrong with me? I didn't know I was getting sick. My therapist then was like, oh, well, how'd you deal with the whole Covid thing? Cause you know, there's a depressive element to it. And I'm like, oh, thank you for saying that. Cause I actually set a reminder on my phone for like every 2 hours. And I was either supposed to meditate for five minutes and clear the thoughts or just tell myself if I couldn't get there to at least think better thoughts and I still have the alarms going off every 2 hours on my phone. And now I'm just like, how are the thoughts? And now that I'm like not sick anymore, it's like, oh my gosh, the thoughts are better. I am on an upswing. I am in a great place with the thoughts because I just put that attention on. Okay, I'm shifting this. I am not going to stay in these limiting thoughts. This is not me. This is not who I want to be. Who I want to be is expansive. So that's why I'm giving myself these little projects of things to work on. Let's consider the word value. And how do I value myself and what do I value? What's important to me. It's like really thinking through that. And it's just like, it's almost like spirit's like, holy crap, she's listening. Dump all the good stuff.
Come here and fire hopefully.
[00:13:09] Speaker A: Oh my gosh, she's listening for a change.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: Oh my gosh. Let's all give her everything.
[00:13:14] Speaker A: Give her everything.
[00:13:15] Speaker B: So it's been like good to just like make that an intention of like, no, I'm gonna, no, I want more. I want to have better, positive. Even if my life itself doesn't like shift and change. I want to change how I feel and how I think. And I think that is shifting that paradigm can change your whole life. So if something really cool happens to me, it's because I'm thinking better thoughts.
[00:13:42] Speaker A: I'll let you know. So the power of positive thinking, there is so much truth to that, right? And it's more than just like, like when I drove a beetle, everybody was like, I saw every other beetle on the road, right? Like if you drive a jeep, you see all the other jeeps. When you were pregnant, you noticed every pregnant woman in the world, right? Those kinds of things. But I forgot where I was going with this. Exactly. But the idea of being, oh, right, the power, positive thinking is like, I haven't done a vision board in a while and I've actually been thinking for the last couple weeks to do another vision board of the things that I want in my next, in the next year of my life. And because I've had vision boards in the past where everything on that vision board came to pass and somebody said, do you think it's just because like, you put it on a board, it happens? Like, is it magic? I'm like, no, it's because you're constantly reminded of the things you want to work toward.
You think positively about those things you're looking for opportunities for those things to come into your life, and you're. It's like you're positively thinking about them. So you are the one that makes them happen. There's very little magic to it. I mean, there is definitely a finding those coincidences and opportunities and, you know, happenstances that will fit into those things that you might not have noticed if you weren't focusing and bringing those kinds of thoughts to mind. But, like, yeah, like, I had a vacuum cleaner on my vision board once because I couldn't afford to buy a new vacuum cleaner, and I needed a new vacuum cleaner, and by the end of that year, I had a new vacuum cleaner. It's like it wasn't going to change the world. I was just trying to clean the carpet. But, yeah, those are important things, too, right? So making those things come to pass, which I just think it's important. And, yes, and a lot of that is rooted in value. Absolutely, 100%. Because when you don't value yourself, it's really hard to value anything else.
[00:15:29] Speaker B: Right? Right. Oh, completely.
Yeah. So I made a list at the beginning of the year of everything I wanted for 2024, and say, I was watching some YouTube video, and they said, make a list of 111 things. I'm like, that's a lot of things. I didn't go that far. But everything on that list, the only thing that really happened was I changed my strength and my physique more. And it was because I gave it daily attention, I gave it everything else, was kind of like a hope, a wish, you know? And so I had, like, this list of, like, you know, win the lottery, like, my big list, you know, I'm gonna upgrade the car, like, all of these things that I wanted to do, and the only thing. So I think the vision board is really important that you give it, like, dale, just give it daily attention, like, the visual of it, you know, putting it somewhere where you see it regularly. And it's not that I was, like, working out all the time or anything, but every day I thought about how much stronger I'm feeling and how much better I feel in my body and how much I'm, like, sleeping at night. For a while, I was not sleeping very well, which was why I started wearing this thing to monitor my sleep. And then it's just like, loser. You can't sleep.
Yeah, I know. I suck.
Last night. I'm like, oh, my God, I slept through the night for the first time in forever.
[00:17:00] Speaker A: Is that nice?
[00:17:01] Speaker B: Also, yes, you need to sleep.
[00:17:04] Speaker A: Sleep is important.
[00:17:05] Speaker B: Yes. Critical. Yeah.
[00:17:07] Speaker A: So here's my vision board hack. Whether you make a physical board or you make a virtual board, because I've made virtual boards before, and like, okay, the first one was actually an MS paint. Not gonna lie.
Either take a picture of the board or save it as an image. Use it as the backdrop on your computer, use it as your phone open screen, because then you're seeing those things on the regular and they're in your conscience. It's not like I made a board and it's in the back of a closet or it fell down behind the desk, or I keep having to move it because it's in the way. You don't want your vision board to be in the way you want it to be in your life, so that you can constantly reflect on the things that you're trying to manifest and bring to life it and bring to light in your life.
[00:17:50] Speaker B: So, yeah, and keep your attention and your focus, I think, is, is what draws these things to you is that you get, you put attention and focus on it. And there's such a war on our attention right now with short form videos. Like, oh, where did that 45 minutes go? Oh, my gosh, there's such a drain and such a pull on our attention and our focus. So to be able to take control and own that and put your attention and focus on the things that you want to have happen, I think is so important. I think you're absolutely right.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: I agree. This would be a great WordPress talk, even like a word camp talk about value and intention to get things done that you want. Like, the first thing you said was like, how excited you are when you did your first WordPress website.
And I'm like, oh, yeah.
And then when I knew to change the permalinks, I was even happier. And then when I remembered to let the web index the site, I was even happier. Right. Like, all those things that you don't know the first time you do it. And, like, incremental happiness is still happiness.
[00:18:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, I remember, like, going into the programming, like, regular expressions or Reg X, regex, whatever. However you pronounce it, you know, it's like Gif and Jif, whatever. But regular expressions were so hard for me to understand. Like, I didn't get them. And then one day it was just like, I get it. Oh, my God, I can write regular expressions. I know how to do this now. And it was just like, after beating my head against the wall, just like, being able to, like, get it and understand it and, like, just conquer it. Yeah, it's very, very empowering.
[00:19:33] Speaker A: Absolutely. And the more attention that you give to your own happiness, your own value, and valuing others around you, the less time and energy you have for disliking, hating, being annoyed, all of those things. And the live and let live kind of comes into play a little bit more, too. We did a. I just post published it. Published it today. We said Thursday for underrepresented attack. We had Maya Ingle, how I can remember her last name, from Hostinger. And we had Miriam Schwab from elementor talking about head coverings and women who wear head coverings, because when Miriam was married, as a jewish woman, she covered her hair. And Nadia is. Maya is muslim, and she wears a hijab.
And it was making me think about, like, when I first learned people do those things because I'm in such a sheltered little town that I grew up in. I was fascinated. I wasn't ever like, oh, they shouldn't do that. Right. But I was wondered about things like that. And I've learned over the years, of course, but to hear how many people hate others just because they cover their hair, I thought, if you. Everything you've said today about value and that kind of thing, like, why do you care? Like, value yourself. Pay attention to the things you need in life and stop worrying about the fact that somebody has a scarf over their head. Like, it doesn't make sense. Right. So. And I 100% value that people are willing to come and talk to us about those things that are deeply personal and sometimes controversial. And I learn from every one of those interactions, which is just. I love it.
[00:21:18] Speaker B: Yeah, that's amazing. That's awesome.
[00:21:20] Speaker A: Really is.
[00:21:22] Speaker B: I just always see women who are, like, totally covered, and it's like, 120 in Dubai or wherever they are, and I'm just like, I'm so sorry. I just, like, what? I just wanted to, like, jump in a pool and it just. I don't know, it makes me feel hot.
[00:21:37] Speaker A: Well, it's funny.
[00:21:38] Speaker B: I know to many of them that's like, it's protective to them and they feel good doing that. Yeah, I just can't do it.
[00:21:47] Speaker A: Maya was saying that she was with some other women, and it was really hot where they were, and their hair was all a mess because it was all sweaty and everything, and she was, like, just looked fresh as a daisy because her hair was covered up.
She said it can actually be an advantage when you. You can get your hair up under it or all of those things that. That you wouldn't necessarily see, and then Miriam said, though, wearing wigs is very hot, so that's why she would often wear a scarf instead of a wig, because wigs are hair on top of hair, and if you add a scarf on top of that, you may as well just, like, move to, like, the Arctic because you're so hot. Right? Kind of thing. So.
[00:22:22] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:22:23] Speaker A: So it's very interesting. Very, very interesting. And I was ever so grateful that we have people who are willing to share those experiences, because it does take some vulnerability to talk about those things, right? Like, people always say to me, wow, I love that you're so vulnerable about whatever. It's like. Well, it's not like when I walk into a word camp now. Oh, yeah. I roll into a word camp. It's not like you can't see that I'm disabled. It's not like anybody is surprised that I know that I'm fat, like, all of those things, right? Like, it's. You're not hiding anything. So there's. Yeah. What is there to be vulnerable about? Like, I just am who I am, but other people are, you know, not willing to put themselves out in the same way or whatever. But I appreciate when women and men and everybody, right, is able to be their true self, show the vulnerability if they're comfortable doing that. And I think it's empowering when they are able to do that, too.
[00:23:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:19] Speaker A: It's empowering for me, anyway. Yeah. Again, I meandered, we got away from our original topic because I just went with it.
[00:23:28] Speaker B: That's what we do here it is. Got to go with the motivation wherever it is, right?
[00:23:33] Speaker A: I agree. Absolutely. We talked about motivation yesterday on the other podcast, too, so.
[00:23:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I love it. But, yeah, I think that value motivation paradigm, all those things go hand in hand if you really want to be a happy person. Yes. I know people say money doesn't buy happiness, but, boy, does it take care of the things that make you unhappy. Right? So, like, yeah.
[00:23:54] Speaker B: Oh, where I was.
[00:23:56] Speaker A: Right where I was ten years ago, you know, ten years ago, we were going through foreclosure. My husband was terrible at managing, but he was really good at hiding, so I didn't know the situations we were going through. My car got repossessed. We got foreclosed out of our home. I divorced that situation moved into a better mindset, and now I'm in a position where I own my home, I own my car. Like, I have no debt. Like, all of these things that are so important, and I 100% recognize that's from a place of what's the word? I want. I am well privileged. You know that there is definitely privilege and everybody can't just do and be. But it's because I did have the ability to shift those things. Right. I mean, what I'm saying is there are places.
[00:24:43] Speaker B: The fact that you worked for it.
[00:24:45] Speaker A: Yeah. You worked for it.
[00:24:46] Speaker B: And you, I mean, you had to, you had to work the shift. And it wasn't just like a physical out there work. It was a lot of mindset shift. I'm sure that you had to go reclaiming your power and, and whatnot. So you have the privilege of being in a country and in a place where that's easier. Especially, you know, there's other places where women can't get divorced and.
[00:25:09] Speaker A: Right.
And they are forced to cover their faces as opposed to choose to cover their faces.
[00:25:15] Speaker B: Exactly. Exactly.
[00:25:16] Speaker A: And they're not allowed to drive a car. And, you know, it was only 50 years ago here in the United States that women were finally allowed to have their own bank accounts and credit cards. Like in the early seventies. Women could note, have a bank account, they could not have a credit card. They could not have a mortgage. We couldn't own property even 50 years ago here in the states. And so the fact that we can now is, it's amazing. Right. And it gives us more, like, much more ability to be independent, which I think is so important, at least for me.
[00:25:47] Speaker B: It is very important indeed.
[00:25:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, I'll stop rambling now.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: Good talk, though.
[00:25:56] Speaker A: Good talk. It is good talk.
Somebody texted me today and asked me, let me see. She said, what would you consider as the best day of your life? So I want you and I to think about that for next week, because I want next week for us to talk about. I can't narrow it down to just one. Right. There are so many really good days. Like, you have two children. If you said the birth of my daughter but not of my son, that doesn't make sense. Right. But there are some really amazing days in our lives. So next week, I want us both to come back with what we are thinking. Maybe the top three to five days memories that we have that just like I think back on that, and that is something that brings me value and hope and happiness, too. And if you're listening to this, we want you to think about that, too, and comment what are some of the happiest memories that you have that make a difference so that it's something that you can reflect back on when you need those days, like Kathy had last week when she was dealing with COVID depression and things. And every, how often? Every 2 hours you had an alarm go off.
[00:26:53] Speaker B: Every 2 hours? Yeah. And I was just like, what are.
[00:26:56] Speaker A: The thoughts that every 2 hours you could put in your mind on those days when you just don't know how you're going to get through? Because those are the days that matter. So.
[00:27:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:05] Speaker A: All right. Well, thanks for listening to my rambling.
[00:27:07] Speaker B: Oh, I love it.
[00:27:09] Speaker A: I love you.
[00:27:11] Speaker B: I love you, too.
[00:27:13] Speaker A: We'll see everybody next week.
[00:27:14] Speaker B: Bye bye.
[00:27:18] Speaker A: This has been WP motivate with Kathy Zant and Michelle freshette. To learn more or to sponsor us, go to wpmotivate.com.
