Achieving greatness requires planting seeds of greatness in your mind. Evolving from ordinary to extraordinary, broke to baller, or ho-hum and mediocre to successful high-performer necessitates practicing a basic and fundamental life principle that says, ”success starts in the mind.” If regardless of current circumstance, you believe your talents, skills, and creativity support your vision to make your dream a reality, then the LaurieTALKS podcast is for you.
I discovered the difference between solitude and loneliness while healing from a relationship breakup.
In this episode, I TALK about how intentionally investing time in yourself can reinvigorate your mind and help you tap into your strengths.
Sending you love.
Thanks for listening.
Hello, my friend,
Thank you for listening. I appreciate you.
LaurieTALKS
It’s easy to stall on tasks we find challenging, intimidating, or overwhelming.
Yet stalling creates stress. And soon enough you’re in a horrible cycle of spending time and energy feeling horrible about avoiding whatever you’re avoiding.
Listen now to find out how positive pressure worked to stop my procrastination and get me on track, in gear and obligated to write a book.
What do you want to achieve? Can you name it? Will you claim it?
Nothing’s more shattering to a dancer than an afflicted body. Fortunately, your body is smart, and it knows how to communicate with you.
Just as you truly appreciate love after experiencing heartache, you truly appreciate dance after sitting on the sidelines due to an injury.
In this episode I present:
If Your Injured Body Could Write You a Letter . . .
Living the life you want isn’t the cause of happiness. It’s the result of it.
While at a Toastmasters International meeting, I came right out and said it: “There’s no such thing as happiness.” I complained and griped about how even the sound of the word made my skin crawl and how mad I got when anyone used it.
I concluded my talk by announcing to my audience—people I hadn’t met until that evening—that standing before them and having to use the word had just about ruined my day and my mood. I was seriously cynical.
While watching two of Oprah’s shows, on both occasions, I was struck by a guest spending her entire time discussing how happy she was in her life. I assumed that both Tina Turner and Barbra Streisand were lying.
Around the same time, one of my older sisters admonished me for my all-day, everyday sarcastic and pessimistic view of everything.
At first, I couldn’t see it. But, over time, I began to pay attention to what my mind was doing, and finally, I realized that my sister was right. I didn’t have one good thought on any subject.
I use my life as a test to see if Tina and Barbra were telling the truth. My motivation, including my decision to leave my desk job and tap dance for a living, became the search for happiness.
Here’s what I came up with: Happiness, contentment, and fulfillment are yours. You don’t need to wait for something outside of yourself, nor do you need a particular condition or circumstance to create it, even when you’re surrounded by those who think otherwise.
The search so many pursue outside themselves is actually
a search we must pursue within ourselves.
Your qualities aren’t static.
You can discover simple ways to make moments and days special and foster positive vibes in a negative situation.
You can, at will, change your thoughts to call upon your version of calm, cool and composed.
Yes. This stuff takes practice, which if you’re a dancer, you know very well how to do.
With practice, deliberate and conscious shifts in perception will happen, offering a peace that passes human understanding.
Cherish your faith in miracles. You’re the miracle. Stop looking.
Audio: @k.sounds.audio
Musical guest: @soultheharvest
Branding relates to who you are, what you do, and why you do what you do.
Whether you call yourself a personal brand is not as relevant as the fact that - in a way, your brand is like your reputation . . . it’s something you develop with or without your approval or permission.
It’s what people think about you when they hear your name or what they say about you when you’re not within earshot.
Thanks for listening.
In this episode, I share a story about a time in my life when I:
My friend, where are you now is not as important as where you want to go.
Listen now and allow your mindset to serve you for your highest good.
You may be temporarily broken, but that doesn’t mean you’re poor.
Thanks for reading and/or listening. I appreciate you. LaurieTALKS
I begin this episode by reading to you from my blog. It’s a story about how we sometimes use our perceived limitations as an excuse to continue to fail.
Listen for my mom’s use of the word opportunity.
I’m sharing this story to remind you that opportunity is everywhere and to always be on the lookout for it.
I’ve included the text of the story for your convenience.
When I was growing up, nobody in my family talked about any of us kids going to college. The only expectation was that we would all graduate from high school. This was considered the BIG accomplishment.
I graduated and settled into a regular, boring, hourly job and lifestyle, working at a department store. I was on the path to becoming quite happy with my “eight-to-five” way of life.
I felt like a real adult. I was making enough money to survive. This was all I needed and wanted.
I could buy my own clothes, keep my car on the road, and maintain an exciting social life.
Back then, this seemed to be enough. Yippie! No more school!
Or so I thought.
A year after my high school graduation, my mother suggested that I do something more constructive with my life.
For the very first time she told me, “GO TO COLLEGE!”
I’d graduated with poor grades, and I had absolutely no intention of going to college.
In fact, it had never occurred to me that I could go, given my academic performance.
I have eight sisters and brothers. I’m number six.
Up to that point in my life, of all my relatives—parents, grandparents, first cousins, and everybody else—only my older brother Kevin had gone to college.
To this day, I’m not really sure how I got accepted at a university. My mother, however, was instrumental in me being given this opportunity.
And even though I don’t know how I got in, I’ll never forget how I arrived on campus.
When it was time for me to leave home, my mother and I drove from Hempstead, Long Island, to upstate New York.
Seven hours into our drive, we ran over a rock large enough to puncture a hole in the gas tank. Since I hadn’t wanted to leave home, I perceived this as good news. I was actually relieved.
My mother, on the other hand, had a different idea.
We took public transportation back home, borrowed a car, and began our trip again. I complained the entire way.
Hours later, she deposited me at the campus then started to drive away.
I took off running after the car.
My mother pulled over and stopped long enough for me to repeat what I’d been more or less saying the entire trip: “Please don’t leave me here! I don’t want to go to this school or any other school!”
Her reply that day was one of the pivotal moments of my life.
She said, “Look. All I ask is that you stay one week. After that, you decide. But stay this week and feel the experience for and within yourself. If it’s not for you, then you can leave.
“At least you won’t go through life saying you didn’t have the opportunity to go to college.”
College was my wake-up call in two serious ways. One, it made me quickly comprehend why family members and teachers had referred to me for years as a first-class, cloud-niner, out-to-lunch daydreamer. Two, it exposed me to just how unexposed I was.
I spent an insane amount of time in a state of shock as to how academically and socially deficient I was.
I wanted to run away from the challenges I knew college would present.
Yet an education helped me see the world through fresh eyes, in a way that a nonacademic setting would never have revealed to me.
Thank goodness my mother stopped the car that day . . . otherwise, I might still be running.
“Running is the answer if you’re on the track team—not so much in life.” ~ LaurieTALKS
Thanks for reading and/or listening. I appreciate you. LaurieTALKS
Dear Big Dreamer,
Here are alternative titles I considered for this episode.
Stay awesome.
TALK soon,
LaurieTALKS
@k.sounds.audio
@moehayslett
Think for a second about what happens when you get into an argument. It’s rare that anything truly positive comes from it.
In fact, winning an argument is overrated. And wasting time on inconsequential nonsense is pointless.
On the other hand . . . argue with no one and everyone wins, right?
Listen now to discover ways to save your precious mental bandwidth, to direct more energy toward focusing on your big dream, and to maintain your peace of mind—all by avoiding arguments.
Easier said than done. I know.
Thanks for listening to @LaurieTALKS
TAP IN to Your Full Potential
@k.sounds.audio
