545. The Best of Better Than Happy

Hey there everybody. Happy holidays and welcome to a special holiday episode of the show. I have a special treat for you today as we wrap up the year and settle into the rhythm of the season. I wanted to give you something a little bit different. So today’s episode is a best-of collection featuring some of the most powerful moments, insights, and conversations from past episodes. Think of it as my gift to you to help you as we dive into the new year. Enjoy.

Welcome to Better Than Happy, the podcast where we transform our lives by transforming ourselves. My name is Jody Moore. In the decade-plus I’ve been working with clients as a Master Certified Coach, I’ve helped tens of thousands of people to become empowered. And from empowered, the things that seemed hard become trivial, and the things that seemed impossible become available, and suddenly, a whole new world of desire and possibility open up to you. And what do you do with that?

Well, that’s the question… what will you do? Let’s find out.

Sometimes, listening to a podcast is enough. But sometimes, you’ll feel inspired to go deeper. If you hear things that speak to you in today’s episode, consider it your invitation to a complimentary coaching workshop.

On this live, interactive Zoom call with me, you’ll get a taste of the power of this work when applied in real life. You can participate, or be a silent observer. But you have to take a step if you want to truly see change in your life… two steps, actually. Head to JodyMoore.com/freecoaching and register. Then you just have to show up. Your best life is waiting for you. Will you show up for it? JodyMoore.com/freecoaching. I’ll see you there.

—

When you make a mistake, you have an opportunity now to show yourself what kind of person you really are. When you do it perfectly, you don’t get that opportunity. You miss that opportunity to show yourself who you really are. You’re not ever going to be a person who doesn’t make mistakes. But what do you do after you make a mistake? How do you treat yourself and talk to yourself and think about yourself after a mistake?

—

It’s very natural, healthy human behavior that you care about what other people think of you, okay? Only sociopaths don’t care what other people don’t think of them, or people with other mental illnesses, okay? So it’s not wrong that you care, but when you slow it down and notice, hey, it’s not dangerous actually. Like even if I went out there on the stage and I tripped and fell and I forgot every word I was supposed to say, and everybody laughed or made fun of me behind my back, whatever you think is the worst-case scenario, even if it happened, it would be fine. You’re not going to die. It’s not a big deal.

Most people actually would probably come to your aid and comfort and love you even more because they saw you in a vulnerable state, which is what connects us as individuals, not seeing each other all perfectly put together. But at any rate, part of your brain doesn’t believe that. It thinks it’s dangerous for people to see your weaknesses or your vulnerabilities, or for you to be on stage as a supposed expert or somebody who has something worthwhile to say or somebody who’s gifted enough at music to be up there playing a song or singing a song or whatever. And then for you to be terrible at it. Your brain thinks that is very dangerous.

—

What are you currently thinking and feeling? This is so important, you guys. I can’t emphasize this enough. You have to become aware of what you’re currently thinking and feeling in order to really, truly make a long-term change. Okay? A really deep, sustainable change that will not only impact you today as you make this decision, but will impact your future decisions. It will be the kind of change that serves you that you can bring with you in all different areas of your life. But you have to spend some time in really deep awareness of what you’re currently thinking and believing and the reality that this current story is creating for you. The reality that it’s nothing really in the outside world creating your fear or uncertainty. It’s the stories, the scenes that you’re watching, the thoughts that you’re having in your mind that are creating that reality.

—

“Should” takes what are subjective ideas, sometimes even useful ideas and concepts, but still just ideas, still just stories, and turns them into universal truths that obviously everyone agrees upon, according to the word should, right? But the truth is, these concepts and ideas are not universal truths. They might be good advice at times, but maybe not always. Okay? So as soon as I say something like, women should do this, men should do that. Fathers, mothers, children, teenagers, we have all kinds of ideas for all the people in our lives and all the people in the world about what people should do.

If you’re like me, I have plenty of opinions about what everybody should do. But the word “should” implies to my brain that’s just what’s true. That’s just what’s real. Like everybody knows that. It’s so obvious, right? Now, some of you, and sometimes for myself as well, we use it on ourselves instead of on others. I should do this thing. I should do that thing. I should stop doing this thing. I should be different. I should feel different. I should even think differently than I am.

And this is the reason I love this concept of should, because a lot of you come to me and I teach you that your thoughts are creating your feelings and that thoughts are optional, and that’s ultimately creating your reality for yourself. And it’s very freeing, and it’s very empowering, right? But the next step in your progression often is to then start feeling bad about what you’re thinking and feeling. We sort of loosen up a little on trying to control the world outside of us, and we instead start judging ourselves and going, I know I should think differently about this. I should feel differently. I should fill in the blank. Which is just as problematic. You go from judging the world and judging the circumstances around you to judging yourself. That’s not going to create the best life for you. So that is the main problem with should.

—

And there is nobody on planet Earth who can tell you the cookie-cutter A to Z that’s going to create success for you. That doesn’t exist. There are lots of people who have ideas and methods that you can try out that you can take from, but your best pathway to success is going to be a combination of probably several teachers and strategies and tools that you’re going to pull together and combine it with you and your own method and your own style. And that’s your A to Z path. And you can only discover that A to Z path by getting your head in the right space and going out there and doing it.

I’m telling you, this is everything. If it feels like I’m yelling at you, I hope you can feel the love it’s coming from because I care about you being successful. I want you to succeed. I know you have it in you to succeed. I have zero doubt that you have it in you to succeed because if you didn’t, you wouldn’t have the desire to do it.

—

If you are having a hard time loving someone, it’s probably because you don’t really know them. And you don’t have to get to know everybody, but if you want to make some friends, go try to get to know some people. Drop your agenda about what they’re going to do for you, how they’re going to show up for you. Some of them aren’t going to be anything like what you want a friend to be, and that’s fine. You’re going to get to know that person and have a moment of connection and then maybe move on. And maybe that’s the end of the relationship. But others will have similar, overlapping ideas about friendship, and it will be a natural fit. But if you go out into the world looking for what’s lovable about people, what’s amazing about people, what’s cool and interesting and unique and fascinating and heartbreaking about people, you will never want for friends. There will be more friends than you know what to do with. That is my wish for you, is that you will direct your brain away from worrying about you, over to thinking about and being curious and fascinated about them. Because loving other people, supporting and being there for other people, there’s no better feeling than that.

And if your brain’s like, but what about me? I need people to support me and love me. And I say, yeah, of course you do. That will happen naturally though, the more you go support and love other people. And the best part is, you’ll still want that sometimes. You can reach out for that when you need it, but you won’t need it very often because when you’re good at loving other people and supporting other people, you have to also be good at loving and supporting yourself. I still believe, I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again, that we cannot love and support and appreciate other people more than we love and support and appreciate ourselves. So wherever your limit is at loving on yourself is going to be your limit at loving on others.

—

Like, hope is something you do about the weather. It’s not something I want you to do about your business. Okay? Are you going to hit that goal? Are you going to sell that program? Are you going to fill the class to the number that you want? Don’t say that you hope so. You know why? Hope is not a strategy. Hope is not a strategy. I hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow has zero strategy. I hope I win the drawing, the lottery, the raffle. No strategy other than sit back and cross my fingers. Right? That is not a strategy. Hope is completely disempowered and it ignores our agency, and I don’t want you ignoring your agency. I want you maximizing your agency. I want you to go all in on being who you want to be and creating what you want to create and achieving what you want to achieve. And that’s not going to happen if you’re operating from hope.

—

“Yet” is such a powerful word. It’s only three letters, and I dare say if you add it to the end of almost any problem sentence that you have, you’re going to not only stay engaged and keep trying, but you’re going to open yourself up to receiving more ideas. I’ve been talking about this a lot with my clients. You guys know this, that ideas, I think, are interesting and somewhat, we might say, spiritual or mystical. Like, a lot of people who are really good in whatever field they work in talk about ideas in this way.

Michael Jackson talked about songs coming to him. I’ve heard Taylor Swift say the same thing about songs coming to her, and many other musicians, right? Talk about that these songs come to them in the form of ideas. And then they need to do something with those ideas. Elizabeth Gilbert talks about this in her book, Big Magic. She’s an author, right? So she talks about ideas for stories and for books that come to her, and that if she doesn’t make it, if she doesn’t write that book or do something with it, that idea leaves her and goes to someone else.

And I have found ideas to be very mysterious in this way as well, that when I am in a receiving mode, ideas come to me. And when I’m not, they don’t. And as soon as I say to myself, I don’t know what to do about this problem, I’m shutting the door on ideas. But if I say, I don’t know what to do about this problem yet, I haven’t figured this out yet. Then I’ve opened the door, and ideas are now invited to keep coming in. And you can think of it as sort of magical and spiritual, or you can think of it as scientific because of the reticular activating system and the way the brain works. Whatever works for you, I don’t care. Yet is a super powerful word. I want to invite you to add it to your regular thought patterns and see what happens. It just might change your life.

—

When you accept where you are, the reason why this is so much more useful than resisting where you are is because from acceptance, you have access to curiosity. Okay? I often use the analogy of this is like a pot with a lid on it. When we’re resisting who we are, we’re shamed or feeling guilty or bad about who we are, we put the lid on that pot, because our brains do not want our weaknesses to be exposed to anyone, including ourselves. So if I have lots of judgment of who I am, I’m going to put a lid on that pot all day long. In other words, don’t look in here. It’s not pretty. You don’t want to see this. You’re going to feel bad when you see this, so we’re not going to look in there.

If I take the lid off of the pot, which is the equivalent of going, it’s fine. I’m fine with whatever’s in that pot. I’m not going to feel bad about it. I’m not going to judge myself. I’m not going to beat myself up. I’m not a terrible person. Let’s look in the pot. Let’s see what’s in there. Let’s dig around in that stew. What’s hiding out on the bottom that I didn’t even know was down there? What’s getting stuck up on the edges? Let’s scrape the edge of that pot and let’s really see what’s in this stew. You will have way more insight and understanding into yourself if you take the lid off the pot, which is the equivalent of stopping judging yourself. Just get curious. Hmm, interesting. I wonder why I’m doing this thing or why I’m not doing that thing. I bet I have a good reason. I know I have a good reason. I mean, even if the reason’s just how very human of me. I’m a human being. That’s reason enough, right? You’ve got to be curious. And when you accept where you are, you can be curious.

—

The scriptures say that it is only through grace that we are saved, right? And we in the Christian faith tradition use that scripture to connect back to Christ and the sacrifice that He made for us and His atonement for us, which I’m still saying is valid and true. But if grace is how we’re saved, right, through the grace of Christ, then why do we think that beating ourselves up, judging ourselves, rejecting ourselves is going to in some way help us improve ourselves in whatever capacity we have to improve ourselves?

That makes no sense to me. It is through grace that we are saved, meaning Christ closes the gap for us, but also meaning, give yourself some grace. That is how you are going to evolve and progress and grow in the way that you want to is through grace. Again, like I said at the beginning, a lot of people think that grace equals stagnation. If I give myself grace, I’m going to stagnate. That is not the way human beings operate.

—

Sometimes we should have problem thoughts. Sometimes we should create problems for ourselves. You know why? Our brains are really good at problem solving. You just want to be selective about the problems that you’re creating. Okay? Your brain wants and needs a problem to solve, and I want you to give it one. I want you to give it a fun one, though, whenever you can. Sometimes we get handed something that we want to describe a problem, and then we go to work on that problem.

For example, maybe there’s a loss of a job and loss of income in your family. Maybe there is a health diagnosis. Maybe somebody is struggling. And I want to think, okay, this is a problem. How can I help contribute positively to what’s going on here? How can I be a positive influence? Or if it is completely my problem to own, what am I going to do to solve for this? What do I want to do? What do I want to think? How do I want to get help? How do I want to get support? Those are sometimes the kinds of problems we have. But many, many, many other times, you, my friend, yeah, I’m talking to you, are making up problems because your brain needs a problem to solve and you haven’t given it a good one. Okay?

—

And the more you choose to get out of the cycle of negativity, the better your life gets. I’m telling you, this is true. It gets better immediately, because you feel immediately better. But also, we tend to create what we’re focused on and what we’re believing. That is your brain’s job. I say this all the time, but it’s because it’s so powerful for me to remember, your brain wants to be right more than it wants you to achieve your goals. Your brain wants to be right more than it wants you to feel better. Your brain wants to be right more than it wants you to change your habits or show up better. Your brain’s job is to be right about what you’re believing. And you will contribute to being right about what you’re believing without you even realizing it. Therefore, choose carefully what you’re going to believe.

—

Telling the truth is the best way to connect. And telling the truth is really easy with somebody that you think behaves lovely, that happens to have a really similar worldview to your own. It’s easy to do. It’s the people that view the world so much more different than we do, or who behave differently than we do, or who just we don’t even understand. Can you tell the truth with kindness and compassion? So the truth might be, I’m feeling really upset right now, and so I don’t think I want to keep talking about this topic because I might say something I regret. Or the truth might be, I don’t even know what I’m thinking right now. I’m just feeling so triggered, and that’s not your fault, but I need some time to process it before I can have this conversation. Sometimes that’s the truth.

Other times the truth is something a little bit simpler and more specific around, hey, I have a hard time not taking it personally when this topic comes up or when you make these comments to me. And you’re still allowed to. I’m just telling you this is my experience of it. Or maybe you’re making a request of someone, right? But when you own your emotions and you talk to people honestly about your experience, it’s very connecting and it provides an opportunity anyway for more connection. Whether or not that other person meets you in that opportunity is to be determined, right? We don’t get to control them. But I have found in my relationships in life, that if I do my part to try to show up as best I can, and when I don’t, to keep the ownership of it and be compassionate with myself and not judge myself, but to simply become more aware, use it to become more aware of myself, then relationships become a lot easier to navigate. Because I get to feel good about the way I’m handling things.

—

If you open yourself up to believing that anything you truly desire from again, a healthy, abundant place, you have the capacity to do right now while you desire it, and it doesn’t have to be stressful and overwhelming, you can have fun with it, then I promise you’re capable of achieving so much more in your life than you are right now. This is true of every single one of us. I’m barely scratching the surface on what I think I’m capable of. And only because I’m not perfect at truly understanding my desires and then truly believing that I have the capacity to do all of them. If you can understand what you desire and believe you have the capacity, you will create it in your life.

—

Oh wow, look at that. You made it to the end. Your time and attention is valuable, and I don’t take it lightly that you made it this far. In fact, it tells me you might be like me; insatiably curious about people and life and potential and connection. Maybe you have big dreams but a small budget and no time. You’re tired, but bored. You’re content, but dissatisfied. Sound familiar? Come to a free coaching call and see for yourself what’s possible: JodyMoore.com/freecoaching to register. That’s JodyMoore.com/freecoaching.