Wisdom and Chocolate is a common sense approach to self Empowerment, self Celebration and Happiness. In this weeks episode we talk about adaptability and how thinking outside the box can lead to new ways of using Tootsie Rolls. All of this lovely wisdom is wrapped in some super yummy non-chocolate, believe it or not! The real transformation in life begins with Celebration….so grab your chocolate…It’s time to Celebrate You!
Highlights:
The Wisdom…You Can Change The Way You Think About You
The Chocolate…Always Be Kind
The Celebration Moment…Trigger Your Positive Emotions
____________
Webinar: Living An Inspired Life - Sign up at:
https://www.betsdanko.com/Livinganinspiredlifewebinar
Check out www.BetsDanko.Com to get more information on blogs, podcasts, courses, and monthly memberships.
Wisdom and Chocolate is a common sense approach to self Empowerment and self Celebration. In this weeks episode we talk about adaptability and how thinking outside the box can lead to new ways of using Tootsie Rolls.
Wisdom and Chocolate is a common sense approach to self Empowerment, self Celebration and Happiness. In this weeks episode we talk about adaptability and how thinking outside the box can lead to new ways of using Tootsie Rolls. All of this lovely wisdom is wrapped in some super yummy non-chocolate, believe it or not! The real transformation in life begins with Celebration….so grab your chocolate…It’s time to Celebrate You!
Highlights:
The Wisdom…You Can Change The Way You Think About You
The Chocolate…Always Be Kind
The Celebration Moment…Trigger Your Positive Emotions
____________
Webinar: Living An Inspired Life - Sign up at:
https://www.betsdanko.com/Livinganinspiredlifewebinar
Check out www.BetsDanko.Com to get more information on blogs, podcasts, courses, and monthly memberships.
Wisdom and Chocolate is a common sense approach to self Empowerment and self Celebration. In this weeks episode we talk about adaptability and how thinking outside the box can lead to new ways of using Tootsie Rolls.
It's time to combine a guilty little pleasure with a new healthy habit. Kick up your feet and listen in. This is Wisdom & Chocolate. I am your host Bets Danko and you are listening to Wisdom & Chocolate. I believe that celebrating motivating and empowering yourself is the key to leading an amazing life. So everything that I do here at BetsDanko.Com is geared toward you finding your self awareness and learning to celebrate you. So let's get to it. Today, our main topic is, Always Be Kind. I just want to take a moment to ask you to share this podcast with a friend give the gift of self celebration to the people who are closest to you in your life. Go ahead and take a moment and share this podcast. Now I may seem a little silly, in kind of stating the obvious, we should always, always be kind. And that's something that really shouldn't have to be said, right? It just seems like everybody should sort of get it. But that's not always the case. Sometimes people are faced with all sorts of decisions, and they're not quite sure what they are supposed to do, how they're supposed to behave, how they should be interacting with the people around them. So that's part of what we're going to talk about today. But definitely, with a lot of humor, because a lot of funny things have been happening the last couple of weeks. And on top of that, I've got a story to share from oh my goodness, oh, 2012 or 13. You know, kind of a long time ago, that I think that you'll find pretty amusing. Now, our wisdom moment of the day is, You Can Change The Way You Are Thinking About You. So let me state that again, you can change the way you're thinking about you. It really does come down to choice. it comes down to you saying, "hey, I want to feel more positively about myself," and then choosing to take paths toward doing exactly that. So I'm always talking about personal development. I mean, basically, every single thing that I do with BetsDanko.Com is about personal development. And one of the reasons why I talk about that so much is because I recognize that so many of us get into ruts. You can be 20 years old, and in a rut baby. You can be 30 You can be 40...50. You're in a rut. And why is that? It's because we've kind of allowed society and our family to condition us into believing that we should be a certain way. And we lose track of who we actually are. Our self awareness meter kind of starts waning. And we don't quite understand exactly how we feel, exactly how we should be behaving, exactly what we should do to maintain a positive life...and to, you know, change the way you feel about you. So personal development is really super important because it gives you the opportunity to really look at yourself and figure out what feels right. What feels good? What can I do to really ramp up my life and make myself feel better? Now, my husband is awesome. He balances me out. He has a tendency to see things that I don't see. And I'm a pretty, pretty good thinker. I am very aware. I'm not just self aware...I'm aware of my environment. I have a tendency to catch on to things that other people don't, like the snake that I almost stepped on earlier today. True story. And there are times however, when I'm just not seeing what the solution is. Like, I'm in the middle of something and I'm seeing everything but the solution. And it takes my husband or an outside person who gets how my mind thinks to walk up and say,"hey, did you think about x?" And I go, "wow, no, I didn't think about x." And I go ahead and I go for whatever it is that they suggested. So this very thing happened. I have this cell phone and the cell phone has the stand and the stand is super awesome because it... it kind of is a clip on so I could put it on a waistband or strapped to a purse or whatever. But you can also kind of click it into place and then stand it up on its side. So the phone is in landscape position and kind of sitting on the desk in front of me which is really great when I'm working because I never have the ringer on my phone on. So if I've got my phone facing me then when it turns on because someone's calling or someone's texting, I'll always see it. So the little tab, that would click that that phone holder in place broke, and it wasn't able to use it as a stand anymore. And so I just kind of stopped using it. And it was a super big bummer. And I couldn't go get a new one for various reasons. So I just was dealing with the fact that I had to just find ways to prop up my phone on other things. And it was a it was just really slowing me down. It was something I was not embracing. It was a challenge I was not riding with very well. And then my husband comes up and says, "Why aren't you using that?" "Well, this thing doesn't work and the tab broke off, and there's nothing that I can do to fix it. There's nothing I could glue on to it or melt another piece of plastic on it. It's just broken, and there's nothing I can do." And he said, "seems like you just need to kind of put something between the clip and the stand and it'll stand on its own." Now, that might seem really funny to you like, Okay, that seems logical, but I didn't think of it. I saw all of the stuff around it. Now I can't do this. Now I can't do that. Now I can't do this. Now I can't do that. And I was thinking basically in a negative way, because there wasn't anything that I could do to get my way if if nothing was working, right? So my husband recommends a Tootsie Roll. He says, "go ahead and put that tootsie roll right there, between the clip and the stand. And it'll stand up because now the clip will be you know, pushed out." And lo and behold, the Tootsie Roll solution was born. And it worked. It worked. Suddenly, I was able to stand my phone up again. Now, think of all the times that the same sort of scenario hits us as people. We're looking at the situation around us. And we're seeing all the reasons why nothing's working and we're not really seeing the solution of how to make things work. And I'm talking about personal relationships, business relationships, how are you going to save money for a car. I had this lovely interview this morning with Jackie Hooper, from Sound Advice Entertainment. And she also is a yoga instructor. And she does instructing online. But she also works, I shouldn't say work, she plays my MidSummer Reset retreats, and as the yoga instructor, and she's really, really lovely. Now she is a booking agent. And so what that means is, there are events that happen all over this region, and people who are planning those events will contact her and say,"I need entertainment or I need a speaker" or you know, I need anything basically to help them entertain their guests. And she says, "okay, I'm on it." She books, all of the entertainment, and you know, takes care of everything that the client needs. And it's really super awesome. But it can be a really high stress job. If there's a day where you literally have 30-40-50 acts going to different locations in different events all over Western Pennsylvania, you can imagine that there could be all sorts of things that come up. Perhaps, you know, one of the acts has a flat tire. Perhaps one of the locations has to cancel at the last minute. You know, all sorts of things could be happening and you're trying to contact people and take care of things and the stress levels can really get to you. Now she started doing yoga. Yoga became her Tootsie Roll. Yoga became the thing that allowed her to relax and just like, let life happen. So kind of the same way that a text would come in or a phone call would come in, a light goes on and she can go Okay, it's time to go back to work. It's time to answer this call or not depending on what time of day it is. And one of the things that she said during this interview was, she literally takes time out of her workday to make sure that she does yoga, because she recognized that life and balance is a life that has all of the elements in place. You're taking care of the mind, the body, the spiritual self, the emotions. It's hard to be completely there for your clients 100% if you physically are not able to handle the workload. It's hard to be there for your spouse if you're not emotionally engaged in conversation or an action. It's hard to be anything to anyone if you don't have balance. So it's important to make space for you. It's important to take care of the things that help you like Tootsie Rollsn inside phone stands. It's really important that you recognize that you can change the way you're thinking about you. You can change the way that you're thinking about your space, how you interact with all of that. A nd also how you can take care of some of the challenges that are going on. You can find solutions in in areas that you're just not expecting, like Tootsie Rolls. It was a brilliant idea that I just couldn't come up with on my own. But once I was told, man, I made that decision. I changed everything in that moment and I definitely was thinking, "Yeah, this is the time to take care of me." As unconventional as it may seem, little Tootsie Roll action right there in that phone stand and everything looked great. Are you enjoying Wisdom & Chocolate, then I encourage you to share this podcast with a friend. Make sure that you're sharing with them all of the love and peace and grace that you get from this podcast every single week. Reach out and share chocolate with a friend. There is one simple equation that holds the secret to an empowered life. It's called the I AM Equation, a powerful online course at BetsDanko.Com dedicated to creating real transformative change through self celebration. Celebrate, Motivate, and Empower, it's that simple. The solution to the equation is personal transformation, the I AM Equation at BetsDanko.Com. Plug your life into the equation at BetsDanko.Com. Now we are at the chocolate moment. And today's chocolate isn't really chocolate.I have to say this but it is a candy bar and it is made by a company that makes really really yummy candy bars. In fact, I'm going to say this even though I haven't gotten to this candy bar yet. A dear woman, Lori Perkins, recommended that I try Lily's Dark Chocolate candy bar and I have tried every other one and probably reviewed every other one from Carmel to Cookies and Cream, which I'm doing today. But I have yet to do just the plain old dark chocolate. So I you know, I'm afraid that she's going to think that I have forgotten but I haven't. And as I say to everyone, if you make a suggestion of a chocolate to try, I will cover it and I will mention you on a podcast. So just in case it takes me a couple more weeks, I just want to make sure that she knows I'm still thinking of her. Now Lily's makes some really awesome chocolate. And one of the reasons why it's awesome is that it is sweetened with stevia. Now I do need to give you a little bit of a heads up, which is that it also has something called inulin in it, which is an extract of chicory. And the thing that I need to make sure you're aware of is if you've got really sensitive intestines, and you know, you you find that that that sensitivity can cause you all sorts of disturbances in that area...you need to show a little bit of caution when you're having Lily's chocolate because they use that as a boost of flavor. But unfortunately, it also creates diarrhea. So be very, very careful when you're eating that. Make sure you don't have too much. Now stevia sweetened means there's no sugar added so that is a plus for a lot of people. These are also gluten free. But the Lily's cookies and cream is a white chocolate style candy bar. And it is so good. It tastes really super sweet, like a little too sweet for me, so I had to have little teeny bites at a time. But it definitely was a great little treat in the middle of a day when I needed to take my break and get away from my desk, create that balance. So I definitely recommend that you try it. It's different. It's a candy bar with a twist. Kind of like a phone stand with a Tootsie Roll. Thinking outside the box creating things that people don't normally think of. And maybe even celebrating innovation that you're not even aware is innovation at the time. You just kind of reach it for a candy bar going, "oh cool, something different," right? So the chocolate moment is Always Be Kind. Now that is also the main topic of today and we really want to ramp this up. Always be kind. Now I'm going to, I'm going to totally confess right here. Kind is a word that I have a difficult time with. I have a difficult time with it because I feel as though it's a word that is terribly misunderstood. There is so much anger and frustration and separation and intentional pushing away of people right now that kindness is something that is not really being embraced but so many people want it, request it desire it. They demand it. They demand the kindness, and it's not quite coming their way. But here's the thing...Kindness is something that once you have gotten out of childhood, and you've already been been conditioned to react in certain ways, it's something that needs to be in your life in order for you to express it as well. I've got really beautiful, lovely, kind children. One of the reasons why is that I am kind to them. I have really loving, wonderful, awesome, kind clients. And one of the reasons is... I am kind to them. I have really lovely, wonderful people with opposing viewpoints on many things in my life, that I can still talk to. I may not be able to share certain things with them because you know, I'm being kind. I don't want to create friction, and may or in turn kind with me. When you are giving that to people, they are more likely to give it to you. Now I do have to say, it doesn't always hold true. Like I need to make sure that you recognize I'm not just seeing everything with roses here, I recognize that sometimes no matter how kind you Now I mentioned my children. I've got a really funny story to tell. And I may have talked about this before, but it's one are, there are people who are just not loving enough of of those things on a list of, you know, the most embarrassing experiences in your life. It's somewhere in the top 20. But, you know, we moved to Pennsylvania years ago from the city. And yes, I'm gonna pull the city card right now so that people don't think I'm just a complete lunatic. There are themselves to be kind to others. And it's okay, still to be kind reasons why I don't totally understand everything in life. And one of the things is that I lived in a city for a really long time. So there are certain things that I'm just not fully aware of, like what a dead deer looks like. So we call this The Legend Of The Poop Deer. And the reason we to them and yet protect your own heart. But when we are always call it that is, on this lovely day, I went out to the garden and recognize that the garden was still in the early stages. Now it's gorgeous. It's got rocks lining all the cardinal directions. We've got a path going through. There's a path kind, people expect that of us and they also want to give that all the way around. We're putting meditation pedestals out in the middle of the garden. And I'm talking a 98 foot across octagonal shaped garden. So this is a huge garden and it's just absolutely awesome. I've got trees growin in there - paw paw, fig trees, pecan trees, I've got all sorts of lovely to us. So if you've got the one person who's not being kind, you things going on there. But in the early stages, there was a lot of just shifting of dirt, moving of manure... there was just a lot of stuff going on. And we did have a lot of wild animals around. The main reason for that was that we had goats and where you have goats, you are going to have coyotes and other wild animals coming around. It's just the way that kind of push them, you know, a little bit further out of your it works. We also had horses and chickens and all different kinds of animals around. But on this one particular day, I went out to the garden, and I was quite troubled because there was a deer carcass in the garden and I really didn't want to deal with circle so that you can still experience the joy in your life. that. I had no idea how long it had been there. I was really concerned about you know, moving it, it's probably going to fall apart. It seems kind of flat, you know, all that kind of thing. So I went to the house and I called my children to help- the boys and my husband, primarily, to come out and out out. And I'm like, "Okay, we're gonna bring a tarp out, we just All those other people inside the circle... Oh, yes. What a need to drag it sort of onto the tarp, and then we can pull it out into the woods and just kind of leave it in the woods." You know, wild things do normally die in the woods so you can leave it out there, you know. And so everybody's coming around. Nobody really wants to look super close, and everybody's lifting up leaves, because it's kind of under some yummy, lovely atmosphere. greenery. And we can't quite figure out where's the tail, where's the head because everything sort of looks like a mound. And the funny thing is, it was a mound. Because one of the things that I was doing was I was enhancing the soil with some of the excrement of the goats. And in the goat stuff was also hay and straw and different things from the bedding and from their eating. And so when you would move those things to the garden, it would look like a big pile of grass. And if it would break down long enough, he would kind of have a brown look to it and sort of look like a you know, a lump...and a little bit like fur who wants it's broken down. So you get what I'm saying here. Basically, a pile of goat poop, looked to me, like a dead deer in my garden. And now you understand why I'm saying I'm pulling the city card. But once we recognized that it was not a deer, and we were all bracing for having to move a partially decomposed, deer... laughter ensued. It was such laughter. I mean, it was crazy, funny laughter. We barely could contain ourselves. And if there was ever a moment where I could have just laughed so hard to completely pee my pants, that would have been it. It was so beyond hilarious. And it is still a joke that we tell to this day. But the really awesome thing about my family and the people that are surrounding me is that even though we can laugh and make fun of one another, there's this underlying kindness. We recognize when is the time to stop. You know, you can push things too far, you can get to the point where you're making fun too long. And so part of being kind is giving grace and having compassion. It's not just important to know where your limits are, but also where the limits of the people you are around are. And it's important not to push those limits. You can change the way you think about you. You can also change the way you think about other people. And the first step in doing that is to show them kindness. Different doesn't always mean stay away. Sometimes different is a Tootsie Roll inside a phone stand. Sometimes different is Cookies and Cream in a delicious candy bar. Sometimes different is yet to be defined. And it's still exciting. You know, when we're going about developing our personal skills, like communicating and problem solving, and all of that kind of thing, one of the things that we really have to do is work on our adaptability - our ability to move from one thing to the next and still feel okay, about the change. It's important that we find new solutions and actively engage in those new solutions and recognize what's working and what's not and keep building on those things. Be adaptive. If we're always sticking to the same old thing, if we're always you know, staying in the city instead of learning about poop deer, If we're always sticking with Hershey's chocolate instead of going for the stevia sweetened Lily's, if we're, you know, always doing the same old thing...life isn't as exciting. Adaptability is extremely important...especially in your personal development pursuit. You can always change the way you think about you. You can change the way you think about anything. You are so awesome that way. So start by always being kind. Always, always, always be kind to you. And to all the lovely people around you. Looking for a way to help support BetsDanko.Com and Wisdom& Chocolate, head down to the bottom of the podcast description. Click on Buy Me A Coffee that will take you to the website Buy Me A Coffee where you can make a donation to help support everything that we do here. And of course we dedicate everything we do to celebrating you. So thank you for helping us do exactly that. So our celebration moment for today is something super direct. I mean, I can't I don't even know how much more direct it could be. Here it is, Trigger Your Positive Emotions - Celebrate You. There you go trigger the positive emotions. It's not like it's an order, but you can take it that way. Just do it. It's one of those choices that comes about. I was having this conversation with another lovely friend today and we were talking about how, you know, you've got to choose what your emotions are. You literally, in those moments when you feel sad, depressed, your just crying for no reason and it's not hormonal, it's just something that's happening to you, you literally have to choose to push yourself to do things that bring you out of it. If it's meditation, or journaling, or singing with a singing bowl or going for a hike, you literally have to push yourself to do those things. Love yourself enough to trigger your positive emotions. That's what it comes down to. That personal love. That love that you feel of self is essential to a happy life on so many levels. And this is one of them. trigger your positive emotions. Love yourself that much. Be kind to you, not just to the people around you. You my love are worthy of that kindness as well. trigger those positive emotions so that you can celebrate you. Always, always, always celebrate you. If you'd like me to wrap a little wisdom around your favorite chocolate, reach out and let me know just write a little comment. Let me know what your chocolate is and where you're writing from and I will find a way to weave it into one of my podcasts. And I'll even give you a shout out so people know that it came specially from you. Check out everything that BetsDanko.Com has to offer at BetsDanko.Com. If you're on social media, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, you can follow me and BetsDanko.Com and keep up to date on all the little bits of Wisdom & Chocolate that I post Monday through Friday. Subscribe to this podcast and start enjoying your weekly dose of Celebrating You with Bets Danko. And while you're at it, If you're enjoying Wisdom & Chocolate please take a moment and share with a friend. Go ahead. Tag a friend today with Wisdom & Chocolate and get them started on a path of self celebration. Experience the wisdom that helps to motivate and empower you in relationships, business, family and most importantly, self celebration. Getting the picture? It's wisdom and it's all about you! Want to hear the chocolate? Tune into Wisdom & Chocolate weekly.