Transforming Your Health and Habits from the Inside Out with Megan Blacksmith

Christine Li  0:01  
Welcome back to the Make Time for Success podcast. This is episode number 127. 

In this episode, you're going to hear a very powerful conversation with my very powerful guest. Megan Blacksmith. Megan is a holistic health coach and Functional Diagnostic Nutrition practitioner, co founder of zesty ginger and the co host of the zesty ginger podcast. Megan shares with us many different lessons about how our subconscious beliefs affect us, and how they can impact our health and our habits and what we can do to change and rewire those beliefs so that we can see lasting improvements and change. Megan and her partner Dr. Alex, train coaches, practitioners and leaders with the tools for faster inner transformation without fighting themselves along the way, through their system of functional NLP, a combination of the principles of NLP, functional medicine and compassionate coaching. You're going to learn a lot in this episode, including how to get past your procrastination and how to rewire your limiting decisions as Megan calls them, make sure to listen straight through to the end of this episode, where Megan invites you to a live event that she and Dr. Alex are hosting in Dallas, in August of this year 2023. It's a packed episode, I can't wait for you to hear it. Let's go listen to it now.

Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li, and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped 1000s of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they can begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn powerful strategies for getting your mind, body and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy, and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the Make Time for Success podcast. 

Hi, everyone. I am so excited to be welcoming and seeing Megan Blacksmith today on the Make Time for Success podcast. I met Megan just a few days ago in person, which is a lovely experience to begin with to be with people live at conferences these days. And meeting Megan was a very, very special treat. She's a delight. She's so collaborative. And I know we have so much to learn from her on today's episode. Megan is a holistic health coach, Functional Diagnostic Nutrition practitioner, speaker, NLP trainer and mindset ninja. And I've been just trying to get all the pieces straight of what Megan is currently doing, but I'm gonna have her ticket away so that we get to learn from her and learn what she's currently focusing on. Welcome to the show.

Megan Blacksmith  3:13  
Thank you for having me, Christine. Very happy and honored to be here. It is amazing to be in the room in person with a bunch of like minded, go getters, entrepreneurs, coaches, etc. So I it was very fun to meet you.

Christine Li  3:28  
And happy to be here. Yes. And we were doing some pretty in depth exercises with each other. So we know each other a little bit at this point.

Megan Blacksmith  3:36  
Yeah, it goes pretty deep pretty quickly when you're in a room where you're willing to be vulnerable and go full out on the exercises. Right? Yes, absolutely. Yes. And that is essentially what we're asking people to do all the time is to go deep really quickly. So we are all about transformation. Although our tagline here. Our company is formerly zesty, ginger, we're rebranding to just zesty. And our idea is SD is not just about transformation, but transforming quickly in an accelerated way because you will change and transform over time no matter what you do. It's just are you going in the direction you want to go? And then how fast can you get there. So I'll give some backstory of what we're doing over in the world of zesty and how we got there. Big picture. Our goal is to really help change and transform conventional medicine. I have a business partner Dr. Alex she is trained in conventional medicine. She's a pain doctor. Although conventional medicine really failed her personally from chronic health conditions. She had undiagnosed endometriosis for 10 years, which led into chronic pain and in the process, became a doctor and now also has gone completely down the functional medicine route as well, trying to understand what is actually under health concerns. And so I had a different the way that my body kind of broke down on me. And for me it was after I had my first child, I had never had any kind of health concerns or conditions leading up to this. I was just always feeling pretty good. I guess I'm pretty lucky now looking back at that, and so after I had my first baby, about nine months, or maybe a year postpartum, it was a little later than most people would think you would have pissed postpartum type symptoms, I started having extreme panic and anxiety attacks. I was so overtired, I wanted to do anything, I could even just get out of my corporate job. I remember Christine, I was thinking about if I could just break my arm I was like, how could I get a leave of absence? Like what could I do? That would not be that painful? Luckily, I didn't go down that path because I don't think that would have gotten me out of much, I think I would just would have been in pain. So it was that bad though I was in when I would go to my conventional doctors, I would get the like your bloodwork, everything is fine. You're not overweight, your thyroids, fine, you're this is just having a baby. This is just new mom life. And I'm looking around, seeing there's other people in the world who have you know, 235 kids. And I'm there's no way there's no way that this is just normal how it is, I would never have another child, if this was just how it was. So luckily, I kept digging. And the digging took me to functional medicine. And that's the idea of really looking at my hormone health, and my brain chemistry and my gut health and all the things that were underlying it and there were things imbalance, there were things very imbalanced when I went to that level. And then I kept digging, I started to understand how my food plays into it, how the things we put onto our body play into it, how my thoughts and my emotions play into, and I kept going and going. And I became, you know, a holistic health coach and practitioner, a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition practice. And I started to learn all the things I studied with everybody I could get in front of and became, you know, what I would consider a fabulous practitioner. And at the same time, we would see this pattern of certain women we'd been working with for maybe eight years, you know, they coming back after eight years, and they're doing all the things, Christine, right, they are willing to work on their mindset, they're going in their sauna, they're doing the latest functional tests, they're actually looking at what their food and their water, and yet, their health wasn't shifting. And it didn't line up. And it didn't make sense. And one thing I am really good at is patterns and understanding people. And I started to just see this pattern as we would be talking, they would get the most out of that they would get the most out of actually being heard and opening up to some of the things that they had going on. And I saw a very similar pattern, that there were some underlying beliefs, things that came from often when we're zero to seven years old, when we're forming, forming our subconscious mind, our unconscious mind these things that, you know, everybody around us is teaching us what the world is like. And they're starting to make connections of, maybe it's not totally safe to heal. I've had a lot of people who have had trauma in the past, and they really do not want to be standing out in the world. So maybe it's like staying much smaller is safe. Or maybe they just don't believe they're worthy of healing or they have the nothing works for me, we attract a lot of people and then nothing works for me catteries. So we started to hear the words coming out and the patterns were very similar. And I got really good at that. And I didn't have a tool yet at that point to then help them shift that belief. So sometimes them just realizing the belief or saying it out loud was enough. Most of the time, though, that was not enough. There was actually these beliefs were there. And we're like, great, we discovered it. Now what and that is when I found the world of NLP, which is Neuro Linguistic Programming, really the takeaway from that if you've never heard of it, we do subconscious reprogramming. So this is the idea that you can actually change the brain, you can actually change the neural pathways into having a new belief, one that is going to assist you in going towards your goals. And when is that going to take you to where you want to go? And this is a process this is not a conscious process. This isn't me saying like muscling through it like tomorrow, I'm going to start the new habit. It's actually getting to that underlying belief or that underlying way or the underlying emotion that we're living out every day and then shifting it into one that we want. So once we started adding these tools, crazy things started to happen pristine, crazy in the best way because we started see people changing their health changing really, really quickly, like after a seven day training, we do a seven day certification practitioner training. And after seven days we had a woman come in, have complete what she identified as OCD, you know, washing her hands a ton of times a day just really not liking to be in public. And when she left, she sent us a picture of her bag, her backpack was on the ground at the airport, which would have never happened, right? Like the ground was dirty to her. So she was like, Look, guys, like my bag is on the ground. And I haven't washed my hands ever since I got here. So things like that. We've seen things shift with auto immunity, we've seen, you know, the physical body, huge shifts. And then also even more exciting for us as the app, we've seen the women that we used to come to us who were there for their physical, Hormonal Health, they're starting to get that all online. And now they're saying, Well, what am I going to do with this energy, which really excites us? They're like, what can I actually create? What business can I do? What nonprofit can I start? What book Can I write? What podcasts Can I record? Because they're, you know, you have to have this physical body have enough energy to even get you to where you want to go. So as people were shifting to that, so now they can use the same tools, the same tools that got them out of a health concern, use those same tools to now figure out like, what limiting beliefs do I have around how amazing I could be or how much money I can make or how much success I can have. So that has been the progression from health to now very much. The other side of helping we help coaches and practitioners, leaders, entrepreneurs add these tools to maximize their health if if that's a part of the journey, or just really maximize their business, and their habits around it as well.

Christine Li  11:47  
That's beautiful. I now, I'm starting to understand your trajectory, you've been through a lot, you've been through a lot of trainings, you've been through a lot of experiences, helping women you've been through your own journey. I'm curious about how you start to find the deep rooted belief and how NLP plays a role. Could you please try to describe that for us? I'm sure you're gonna get at it right away. Go ahead.

Megan Blacksmith  12:14  
Yeah. So the the most fun part about this is that so NLP is neuro linguistic, linguistic for language. So when we're speaking, the language we use tells so so so much about our underlying beliefs, and what will happen and I've done the same thing, even when you've studied language is that when you just kind of get into flow, and you're having a conversation with someone, the words will start to pop up, that are showing you what's underneath there. So you might consciously be thinking, I really want this great business, or I really want this successful podcast. And then as we're talking, we ask a lot of questions, right? This is what we call it data mining, where you're just pulling in, like, understanding more of this person's model of the world. That's a part of NLP is really not just understanding the person's model of the world, but getting into it with them. So you can see through their eyes, because in our mind, it's not teaching anybody what to think. It's teaching them how to think. So it's teaching them how to question how to question what we're automatically believing to be true. Because with language, we can easily be talked into, or talked out of things that maybe are great for us, and maybe aren't. So as we listen to the language of someone speaking, they'll really quickly, they'll really quickly show those beliefs that are under there, they may not even realize they're doing it. But we train people to actually listen to the language. And they might say, Yes, I really want to have this amazing podcast, but I should be spending more time with my kids and right there's these other caveats to what they're saying, or but I just can't seem to get myself to do it. I just can't seem to get myself to get up and go. And as you as we listen, I will, I will take notes when I'm working with a client. And by the end, I will have highlighted potential limiting decision potential limiting belief, right. So in our world, we like to call them limiting decisions. A lot of people have heard of limiting beliefs, who will say limiting decision, because at some point, you decided that, right? So we can say if it's a decision, when did you decide that? And if it's a decision, it also implies that you can change it to something else. Whereas a belief we can get locked in like this is just my belief, right? This is just how it is. So the decision is there was a moment and we'll ask that when did you when did you decide that? And often it is a moment at an event that something happened. And sometimes it's so early on, that you would never think that it's tied? You know, it might be something that happened when you were three years old or seven years old or you haven't we've had people come up with things when they were in the womb or being born like this are our unconscious mind is listening and hearing everything and anything that's happening happening around us whether we even had the language to speak to that yet. So when we're zero to three, when we're one year old, and we don't have the language yet, we're still soaking in those beliefs, we're still soaking in those energies, there's emotions, we might not yet be able to say that anger, or that I'm not worthy, although we're still taking it in. So the biggest process that we're going to use to help uncover those unconscious beliefs are listening to the language and helping people pull out where it is. And then we follow the emotion. The body and your emotion will show you really quickly where the triggers are. Right? So when you're sitting there, and you're saying a statement that you want to be true, and you don't totally feel it, you can see that on somebody's face, you can see a change in their coloring, you can see a shift if they can tap into their body, then they will realize like, oh, okay, there's a motion here. So we believe, for example, if that our emotions are always there as feedback to tell us what what is actually best for us, like what our, I'll say, our higher self, but like, what, what is the best thing for us. So when we're saying a statement of like, oh, yeah, but I'm just not an organized person. If we have a, if you have a feeling when you say that, if you have a little bit of twinge of like or been to us, that's because that statements not actually true. That's a belief that we have take on that's a, that's a thing and identity, right, we'll take on all sorts of identities just to kind of fit into a certain box. And when our, when our heart is feeling something different, the body will start to show you. And you will feel that in the trainings that we do. So whether it's a two day or a seven day, what we actually find the most beneficial. And actually, Christine, like the training, the two day training, we were just that is when you're in a container like that. So you're at an event, you're out of your environment, you're away from your family, you aren't on your schedule, you maybe don't have the food you'd normally eat, you're maybe in a sleeping in a hotel, right? All the things that come with that. That is the perfect environment, for you to see what your beliefs are for you to have, because then we watch, we follow the triggers, we say like, Oh, where did somebody get upset? Because usually it's not necessarily even around the training and what they're learning, right? It's like we're teaching the concepts and things that people will get triggered about or like someone took my seat. And it seems small, this is legit happened at multiple trainings. It's like a thing, right? That was became their spot, they became comfortable in their spot, they were safe in their spot. And it seems so small, and yet it represents a bigger belief. So we start to be like, What are you feeling around that? What does that represent? Well? Well, it's not, it's not safe here. Because someone can move me at any moment or, you know, we'll start to hear the beliefs coming up just based on a chair, or that I need to, I don't have my food, I need to control my environment to feel safe, I need to have a certain type of food to feel safe. I need to, you know, we'll have a lot of different learning, takeaways people will have around interacting as a group. I mean, we have the I have the classic. I don't know if you're into human design, Christine, but i Are you

Christine Li  18:34  
I know of it. I'm not into it. Yeah.

Megan Blacksmith  18:38  
Well, it doesn't really matter. But part of my design is that I really want to be in a group and I love groups. But I also want to be outside the group, the group, just watching. So I will feel this push and pull out events of like, oh, I want to be accepted, like accepted in the group and not kicked out of the tribe. That's, you know, I think we all kind of have, we each have our thing. That's like one of our core things. For me, it's like, accepted and being in the group is a big thing. And at the same time, I want to have my time alone, and I want to be independent. So is there's push and pull. And we'll watch people do this, like, oh, that group is going to dinner? Was I invited? And what does that mean about me? So really the environment the the setup, although I mean, it really any setup where you put a bunch of humans together, will do it, you'll start to see it. And people themselves we are training them to start to recognize their own beliefs. We're training them to follow the emotional compass, we're training them to see if you feel triggered was the word we use. But if you feel any kind of physiological response in your body, if your face flushes, if your hands are jittery, when you say something or something happens, then you know there is a belief there. Because we can have five people witnessed the exact same event, right? And you're witnessing it like oh, this is so Beautiful and joyous, you might be having all these emotions, you know, all these pleasant emotions. And I, if I have some belief that what those people are saying is cruel, or how they're leaving me out, then I might be having a negative emotion. And so it's the same environment, it's our beliefs underneath that are then providing what our physical body is doing. So we start to teach that not only do we have the beliefs come up, that will change the physical body, but we can use the physical body to then talk. So top down versus bottom up, we can use the physical body to also change the beliefs. So it's a big old circle of physically managing the body, we do teach our students, parasympathetic tools, things to actually like, tap into the rest and digest versus the fight or flight, like how can we in the moment, calm the physical body whenever it's having a reaction. And then we also say, don't get to stop there, you also have to look at the belief. And you also have to look at the physical body. So if we're not treating our body well, meaning, we really are ignoring its signs for thirst and hunger and nutrition and movement, then we will notice that we will start to now feel maybe a little less settled in our thoughts, right? Our body is like, Hey, I don't have the, I don't have the nutrition and the resources I need. So now the thoughts become more intense. And people are like, Well, I'm dealing with all these anxious thoughts. And now the anxious thoughts are like, well, I don't want to go out and walk or make food because I'm, in my mind. So this is a big old circle, that we can we can affect in many ways, though. So we can calm the physical body, or we can change the thoughts. And we call that like the the spiral, the spiral, where we spiral up in to success, we spiral up into what we want to have happen.

Christine Li  21:49  
This is all amazing, thank you for that wonderfully clear and energized description of what you've discovered, and how powerful it is. I keep thinking about what you described, after you had your first child and the exhaustion that you had. Would you mind using that as maybe a mini case example? I know it's personal. So I want you to share what you feel comfortable sharing. But I think in describing that story, I was thinking how powerfully our beliefs shape our energy, and how important it is for each of us to have as much maximized energy as we can get for ourselves. So could you talk about both topics? What happened with you? And then just the connection with energy and what we should desire for ourselves? What should we expect as women?

Megan Blacksmith  22:45  
Hmm, that's beautiful question. I don't know that I've ever thought through exactly what my beliefs were, this is going to be fun. So I love this. So okay, so my belief is that our beliefs do shape shape our reality. And this is not to shame or guilt ourselves of like, oh, I don't have what I want. I'm just thinking crappy thoughts. Like, we really do want to have some compassion for the journey. And this is a process. And this is a journey. And I believe we go through all these things, for reasons. For example, my business partner and I are here to help women understand their health and help practitioners then understand how to help people with their health. And so I do feel like I went through a few intense versions of health journeys, because I needed to learn that. So we hear we hear that from practitioners or like when you're here to share a certain message or gift with the world, sometimes you experience things a little bit deeper than other people do without getting the sign. And that was me, so. And I do share, we have a podcast as well. And I do share very open invulnerability, a lot of my backstory about my relationship with my husband. So there isn't really too much for me to share. It is all there on the podcast, too. Although what happened was, we were in a place where we actually weren't in a very good place when I had that first child. And not only that, I didn't listen to my intuition on a couple of different instances. And I do tell this story as well. So the day that I went into labor with that baby, we actually got kicked out of the house that we were living in. I had moved in, a friend was moving across the country because she was getting a divorce with her husband and had said, Hey, there's nobody in this house. It was in Hawaii. It was the most beautiful home close to the ocean. And I was like, and she said, Do you want to stay there? Of course I did. But I had this little gut instinct not to go. I was like this. I don't think this is a good idea. And we did because it was like it's Hawaii. It's a how it's an million dollar home that was empty, and we're about to have this baby. So we followed I followed multiple paths at that time that were not following my heart or my gut. So now looking back, I can exactly see why things broke down after the fact. Although, of course, I did not have this insight at the time. So the half owner of the home, her husband came back and the day I was in labor, I was actually having contractions. And he came to the door. And he said, Well, you all don't have to leave because the court said that you are squatters, and you are allowed to stay, although I'm also allowed to be here. So I'm moving in. And we realized really quickly that that wasn't gonna work out. So the cool thing about the body, Christine, yeah, it's a crazy story. The cool cool thing about the body which I reason I do love to tell this story is I remember thinking I'm in the middle of contractions, I'm barely able to like we were gonna go to the hospital, like within 10 minutes, it was like bout to have a baby. She was 10 days past due. This wasn't like early labor. This was like I was waiting, ready to go but waiting it out. And I was like, how am I going to answer the door with this person there because this person scared the heck out of me. And I'm having contractions with my first baby. And so somehow, I managed to get up. And then I realized as I'd been standing at that door, that, you know, had been five minutes, 10 minutes, like no contractions, no contractions at all. And then I'm like, we snapped into go mode, we got to figure out where to go, where to move our stuff. And we got a storage facility and moved stuff in for the next eight hours, all the little baby outfits in the nursery, and all the things set up. And my body knew exactly what to do. It stopped all labor and contractions for the next eight to nine hours, I completely stopped it. I was able to do move and do and walk. And the second we had that last thing in storage, we get in the car, we're going to a friend's house for the night. We're like, Okay, we're good, we're safe, we have a place to go. And we're exhausted. And the second we get into that car, all my contractions came right back on and my water broke. And my poor mom and my husband are ready for a break after moving. I'm like, I'm sorry, guys, we're going right to the hospital. But it was such a cool example of how much the body does know. Right? Like it shut down labor, that powerful force that I didn't feel like I could stop, right?

Christine Li  27:30  
I think you activated all of my bodily responses in telling those stories. What an incredible experience to have to go through Yes, and incredible that your body knew to stop.

Megan Blacksmith  27:42  
Right in, it just kind of represents how much when we do tap into this how much we know. So I had been overriding my body for a while. And I had a belief that I knew better than my body. Like I should just, I will just do what I want. I won't listen. So there's the belief right there that I think got me into the mess that I got into. Okay, and of course, no judgement about it. Because that was just my path. Yeah, because I think that can be a really hard one, when we put that on us. And I do that was the message I over I was overriding it all the time.

Christine Li  28:15  
Well, that's a very clear example, also of how our beliefs directly feed into our practices, the way we lead our life is really structured by those subtle, but very powerful and meaningful beliefs right there. So ours, and the way you did that is going to be different than if I were doing the same dynamic that it would look differently in my life and my behaviors and the intensity, that kind of thing. But wow, absolutely. Wow. Yeah, absolutely.

Megan Blacksmith  28:43  
And then it creates those beliefs create our habits. Yeah. And then the habits are then create our actions. It creates our identity, and how we work things out. So when we help women shift or and everyone we work with men and women now what when we went help people shift their beliefs. There's a second key to that, which is really important and often missing. And that key is now okay, we've done some subconscious reprogramming some work to shift or a belief. And now what are we going to do? What are we going to this where the habit the actual action piece comes in? What are we going to do? What are we going to take action on to cement in to secure in the identity of the person that we want to be that person that we just changed that belief. So we'll clear a belief. So maybe I'd go in and be like, Hey, I don't want to, I would like to believe that I can trust my body. Or I could like to believe I can trust my intuition. So maybe we install that as a new the new belief I want. And then we say all right, well, what am I Megan now going to do with the identity of someone I fully believe I trust my intuition. What's something you're going to be doing in the next week that can represent that where normally you would maybe do research and you would look through five different pages and you would ask 10 people which best per Abram is or that kind of thing? What can I just now say, I'm just gonna go ahead and maybe for me, it's like, just go by that next thing that I was looking at that gonna stop doing all research and go by that right there's whatever whatever that was just for me whatever that belief and we create an action step around securing that identity. So now you're living it in the moment, right? What would that person who has the things that you want to be and do and have? What would they be doing now and you start to live from the now as if you already have it right instead of like, well, when I get successful when I get healthy, I'll start XYZ. And actually, that was a that was something we learned early on from our health struggles, we had had such health struggles that we were afraid to ever schedule something out, like I didn't want to schedule a podcast recording out two weeks from now. Because what if I didn't feel well? I don't know how I'll feel then. Right? And we think about what is that message you're sending one to your own unconscious mind to to universal energy of how, however you think about that. But when you're just like, I don't know, you're you're basically planting that you won't feel well, you're assuming that you won't. So sometimes what we had to do is actually reverse engineer that and start with, well, if I felt well, I would schedule that thing. And we'd schedule that thing before we even felt well. And then that would follow. And you know, the the cool thing about this is, is you can always shift, you can always change. There's the beliefs around like, Yeah, but what if I had to cancel? Those are usually just way bigger beliefs and problems and what the actual reality is that that then we've decided something around like, I'm a bad person, if I have to cancel, like, that's embarrassing. If people know, I have a health condition that I never know how I'll feel or whatever the story is around that. We're better off, in my opinion, just doing the thing, scheduling the thing. And then if it doesn't work, go to the person, be honest. And then they'll usually say, Oh, wow, it was very honest of you. Because I have the same kind of thing or, you know, right, like, Yeah, we all actually have these experiences.

Christine Li  32:11  
I think that the example that you just gave, made me think that, in my belief, I don't think any of us are 100%, negatively oriented, there's always a part of us that is desirous of a good outcome, but we're fearing and it's language that is opening the door to that fear. It's the what if I can't show up for that podcast episode. But that's so powerful. Once we put language to the energy, it's kind of like already on that our attention is going that direction, we're already worried about that date two weeks out, already, having a negative feeling about what's going to happen, instead of creating a very beautiful picture of a great episode of being able to show up healthfully of being able to support the part of us that is always about expanding and having fun and succeeding. And I think our work is very similar in that I I'm a big a big proponent of actual deadlines, because we start to get away from ourselves. When we're thinking, Oh, I'll get to it. And there's no real thing that we can pin our hopes on to we have to get really good at being hopeful. And being confident and being sure of ourselves that we're going to be able to take ourselves through to the end. And I love everything that you're teaching, in today's episode about all the factors that we do, subconsciously and through our language that can really sabotage the most innocent of plans or the easiest of plans. All we need to do is say, what if and we're we're all of a sudden, worked up more anxious, more distracted, less able to follow through. Could you talk to us about procrastination, my favorite topic and how NLP and what you do can help people to really get clarity about the journey forward instead of moving backwards and seeing steeped in regret and embarrassment and shame.

Megan Blacksmith  34:22  
I love everything you just shared right there because procrastination becomes a habit too. So we decided that this was in some way more protective. So in our two day we have a two day habit event. Our next one will be in August in Dallas. We do it twice a year. But in this event, Dr. Alex really describes and explains what is happening in the brain when we make these decisions. And I find we do attract a lot of the nerdy folks who like this detail, that level of detail, but I do really find when you understand that your brain is actually doing these things to protect you always is right, we talk about the idea of self sabotage. But in reality, it's never actually self sabotage, we only do things for efficiency. And because there is a belief that it is helpful for us, if we smoke every day, your brain believes that there's a reason and that habit should be kept. And we're going to make that pathway as efficient as possible to make sure that you get up, see the anger, feel the feeling and do the thing, right. And it's the same thing with something like procrastination. I just say that, because if you're like, why would I do this, I know, this isn't good for me, there has to be a benefit to it. And the benefit has to be larger than what we believe the other side is. Now, you and I may know on the when you get on the other side, and we can't get rid of the habit like that, that there is actually even more magic. But at the time, the brain is like, I don't believe you. Right. It's like I'm better the thing we know better the pathway. We know literally the neural pathways in the brain. There, you know, we have a superhighway to procrastination, and we have this little dirt road over to like take action, get things done. And so we're gonna follow the superhighway. It's burnt in, it's well known, it's easy, it feels comfortable. And then at some point, what will happen is people will say, I know I meant for something bigger, right? Maybe they helped someone and they saw how much joy it brought to them and how much to change their life, or they have a why they have a reason to go for their dreams or to go for something. And now they're like, Okay, I'm a little willing to be a little uncomfortable to change this habit, because what happens when we first change a habit is that we will be uncomfortable. And if we're not uncomfortable, then we're not actually changing the neural pathway. Right? So it's a good sign when you're like, coming up against some resistance. So we can start to identify what is this we call it secondary gain in our world of NLP where it's we get something for we get something better or that we're blurring things is better out of doing this thing. So what is the procrastination keeping us? I know I had a I used to have a strong procrastination habit. And I was able to track it all the way back to the fact that my mom is a total doer, and she's a giver. And she loves all the things. So if you if I not you, but me, if I waited, if I waited and didn't do the laundry, didn't do the homework didn't whatever she would give in and do it. Because she could not let it be she could not let me sit in my discomfort at that time with, you know, the way her beliefs were. So I learned really early on. And then I had roommates later that, hey, if you just don't take the trash out, eventually other people do it. Now I'm very aware now that this is a horrible strategy. And I'm really sorry to that roommate. Although it became a strategy, a habit, like in my mind, I had said to people before, you know what, I have all these things on my to do list. But honestly, usually, if I just wait, they go away. And it is kind of true. They go away, although the opportunity also goes away. So usually, there was a reason there was something on that to do list. Like there was a connection, there was a something and yeah, I mean, if I have a bunch of potential podcasts I want to be on, which I do, because I love to speak and then I put them on a list and then I ignore it. Yeah, it goes away. And I will just never get to do that. So when we can start to really look at the things we're scared of, or the beliefs, they're like, my belief was like, I'll get more help if I just wait or I won't have to do it. And really, under that belief was more of that. It's not comfortable to have to do things outside of my comfort zone, right like or that I couldn't handle doing things outside of my comfort zone. So I'll stay small. And then I won't have to worry about those big heavy feelings, or the fear or the anxious thoughts or anything that may come up with stepping outside into a new area. If I just wait and procrastinate. Oops, the deadline went by, I guess I'll do it next year. Right? That's that's what we call habit talk when the rains like, oh, just start tomorrow, you know, because somehow tomorrow it looks like it'll feel better and be easier. And then you're up against at some point, you do have to go into the feeling at some point you do have to like shift the belief so that you can now be a person who doesn't procrastinate. So I would challenge everybody listening. If procrastination is a major thing once just start writing out like what is what are you getting out of this? What are you gaining out of this? And then what are you believing about it? What do you believe in will happen if you do start to do things? Like no oh, I will actually be too successful. I won't be able to handle the clients I get or I'm not sure what is it you'll have more on your plate or what will you will happen. And just really, really also saying, what could I get to do? If I was to do those things that I've been procrastinating? Like, what could this open up? What new identity? And what would the identity of the person who? What's the opposite of procrastinating? So the person who actively goes after their goals? I'm not sure. So we're always working to reward for what we do want. We have a lot of people come to us what they don't want, don't want to fail in their business or they don't want that pain anymore. We really want to rewire What do you want want to keep saying what do you want? What do you want? Because the subconscious mind only hears the positive. So even saying I don't want to procrastinate. That's just securing in more procrastination.

Christine Li  40:44  
Yeah. I often say the opposite is high performance, high performance. Yeah, that people really want to see that that success. I think that that's a very, very common wish. And I think a realistic wish for people. But as you said, if we're concerned about safety, generally safety is going to win out even over high performance. So you want to see what are the beliefs underlying, but also, like you said, to write down what's going on? Why are you sticking with that? What is the gain for you with kindness to yourself in doing this exercise, but also calculate what might you be missing? That is actually something that's actually really good. And thrilling for you? What are you blocking? By keeping yourself in the same habit? situation? Absolutely.

Megan Blacksmith  41:38  
Yeah. So one of the other things when we go through our habit or two day habit class, we cover what we call the four bodies, I mean, every many people talk about this not new for us, but the emotional, mental, the physical, spiritual, or energetic. Because when we're looking at habits, we want to make sure we're and it's like, those are just kind of words that come out. But we really do want to make sure each area is connected. So physical body, we also want to look procrastination, there can be physically something going on with your brain chemistry, there can be something going on with your thyroid, like there could be a physical thing, we could be in a posture that's telling our brain like we're tired, where we shouldn't be doing things. So there, of course, we're want to be making sure the we're addressing the physical body to optimize for the habit, mental body, like what are these are like, what are the stories we're telling ourselves? What are the beliefs around it? And emotionally like so for me, you know, it's like I said, it may be uncomfortable, you may be uncomfortable with the emotions of expanding or, or going for something where that high performance gives you like this, oh, boy, like, there's gonna be a lot to this. So when we learn to actually sit without emotional body, and like, what is it telling us and telling the body, we are safe, like, you know, go to speak on a stage and still tell your body like, I am safe, you know, this may be a little bit scary, and my body's physic, you know, a little jittery, and like retraining it, body, the mind, the emotions, and the energy that it is safe to do these things, or that it's not just safe, but that start rewiring, that it's going to actually lead us to the abundance and the high performance and the life that we're looking to live. So really just making sure that all the different categories are considered because what we found will happen with habits people love the idea of habits, but they get into it from a, I'm going to force this point of like, okay, habit stacking, right or Okay, people say, Well, I will procrastinate less, if I just set the alarm and do it or I don't know, like, it'll be kind of hacks when we love hacks. So don't get me wrong. We love our hacks. Although the hacks without doing all that other deep, deeper digging will last like three days, maybe, maybe a week, I don't know. But it won't actually help you to the new identity unless you're uncovering all that. So we just were kind of layering in and making sure people are getting each part each body online for the goal they want as a whole.

Christine Li  44:06  
I love it. I love it. Thank you so much for the depth of your work, the meaningfulness of your work, the joy that you've put into your work, I see it and feel it and I'm sure that is an additional bonus for working with XSD. And you and Dr. Alex, could you tell us about the August event in more detail what it's called, how people can get in and then I will provide a link for people to make sure that they get access to the event.

Megan Blacksmith  44:40  
Yes, absolutely. Okay, so we do we've done this in January. We did this in Virginia Beach. That's where I live and Dr. Alex lives in Dallas so we're going to hold a two day event habit transformation accelerator. We like the concept of compassionate habit change. So like I was saying not for forcing the body through it and not just like, ignoring like, like I had to learn like ignoring the intuition ignoring the signs but but doing it in a way that literally you'll slide into it and be like, Oh, this is the new identity. So we're teaching people a structure. We have an amazing community of leaders, coaches, entrepreneurs, practitioners, we do it also attract a lot of people in the holistic health space. We've had doctors, naturopath dieticians, because you know, we do also bring that knowledge, it's amazing to be adding in kind of the understanding of the brain in the physical body for people who are more in like the online coaching world where maybe that's not a part of what they've been, they've been learning. So two days in Dallas, it is August, make sure I'm saying Wednesday 23rd and August 24, the nine to five full day in at first 50 People are going to get a lunch voucher included, we are going to have teaching training, we're going to have interacting, so we're all about building a community, we love our online and then this is just when you're with people in person, you know you as you know, Christine, right, you accelerate those conversations and you accelerate the connection so much faster. And we really hope people meet each other and work with each other and support each other and grow together. So by the end of the two days, we will have helped people have a very clear structure for changing habits, a very clear structure for changing beliefs, we will actually be doing a couple reprogramming during the event of beliefs of you can come with your your worst money mindset beliefs, or your worst procrastination beliefs, or whatever it is that you know is really holding you back and plan to have that shifted. When you leave your environment. The amount of new neural pathways that are can reconnect and rewire in just two days. I mean, our longer actual practitioner certification is seven days. So that's a lot of pathways. But in two days, we will have people leave, we had someone just leave from the last event, she went home and she quit her job as a teacher not suggesting anyone did that, although she was like been wanting to live this dream for five years, and had not made that jump. And finally, she saw exactly how she could make that jump, she saw what was underneath it, what was holding her back. And she was like, I'm going to do that. I want to be the person who does that. And I know I have the tools. I know I have the resources here. So we're all about resources. We're all about connection. And we're just going to have a great time in Dallas. So we would love to invite all of your listener listeners, Christine, the tickets are very, very low investment, this is definitely a value of a $2,000 course for just the event that we're going to, it's only 197 and you'll get a meal voucher. So it's an insane deal for a reason we want people to come get this first level and understand get a taste of what they can do for themselves, interact with each other, and just have an amazing time in Dallas. So we would love to have anybody there and we're happy to answer questions. So support at zesty. ginger.com is our email and of course they can reach out to you to Christine.

Christine Li  48:05  
Okay, wonderful. And to sign up for the event. I'm going to create a link for everyone. I'm going to make it make time for success podcast.com/zesty. Again, it's make time for success. podcast.com/zesty ZSTY. And I'm so happy to be supporting Megan and Dr. Alex's wonderful work. And this really does sound like a high value, high transformation event. So I encourage anyone who is thinking this is really nudging at me this is something that I think I should do to really take Megan's invitation up. Thank you, Megan, for being here. You've been a delight and so helpful, and so clear and passionate about what you're doing. I'm just so impressed. Thank you for being here.

Megan Blacksmith  48:57  
Thank you, Christine for having me.

Christine Li  48:59  
All right, everyone, another wonderful episode wrapped. Thank you so much for being a listener of the show. I will see you next Thursday when the next episode drops. Take care. Have a great week. Bye. 

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time for Success podcast. If you enjoyed what you've heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com for past episodes, show notes and all the resources we mentioned on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name procrastination coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success. We'll talk to you soon!

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