Mental Fitness is a Key Success Strategy for Leaders Under Pressure with Pam Solberg-Tapper, Leaders Under Pressure Expert and 7 Continents Marathoner

Cindra: Awesome, thank you so much for joining us. Pam Solberg-Tapper. I’m so excited to talk with you today I wanted to have you on the podcast for a long time and it’s just so fun to have a good friend on the podcast. So how are you doing today?

Pam: I’m so excited to be with you on your podcast and congratulations to you to have over 400 episodes Cindra, that’s outstanding.

Cindra: I know I could even believe it last time I recorded an episode, I was like today’s 400 I felt like I was just kind of focused so much on the process that it was like, you know, not necessarily focused on the number but just the quality. So thanks for saying that Pam.

Pam: Man, congratulations.
Cindra: Well to start us off, just give us a little insight into your passion and what you’re doing right now?

Pam: Yeah, so I’m leadership under pressure expert. So what does that mean i work with leaders that are under pressure of all the demands that they have on their lives right now. The overwhelm the ambiguity and all the things that are happening in the world. And I help them shift from all that overwhelm and ambiguity to having a more calm and clear headed way of thinking using Brains, Neuroscience and mindset strategies.

Cindra: Awesome. Well, tell us a little bit about how you got into coaching and especially coaching leaders, kind of, who are under fire?

Pam: Yes, so a prior to being a coach. I was in the healthcare industry so had an MBA in that field and worked my way up the ranks and was able to be in a job that was really secure had a great team worked with smart people had job security, made the money and I read the Book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People I opened the chapter begin with the end in mind. And so he prompts us to take a forward view of towards the end of our lives. Looking back, and what is it that you want to see. And I thought, holy crap, this isn’t it and all the things that I put together to get to where I was, wasn’t it, and so I was really demoralized at that point. And so I actually pursued finding a career coach to help me pivot and decide what I’d like to do instead. And I am so grateful to her now because I’m doing work that’s truly in my passion and to be able to have leaders like Mike my old for former role to help them navigate all of the overwhelm and pressures that they have in today’s world.

Cindra: So would you say a coach introduced you to coaching or did she does kind of through your explorations talk about what is it that you want to do next and you found coaching or tell us a bit about actually how that works for you?

Pam: Yeah, and it is all about that exploration and I’ll share a tool with you that I think works really well and I use with my clients we call it the sweet spot exercise so anyone can do this and it is really, really helpful to kind of narrow down what is it that that makes you happy and

fulfilled. So you think about if you think about a Venn diagram that has the overlapping the three overlapping circles. Okay. And if you would draw that out the first circle that you will look will populate is what is it that I’m really good at. And so you can be a myriad of different things. Maybe you’re good at details. Maybe you’re good at project management. Maybe you’re good at leading people, maybe you’re good at vision or strategy or whatever those things are that you’re really, really good at the second circle that you populate is what brings me joy. The whole different question because what we’re good at does not necessarily bring us joy and so that’s what happened to me. I was good at what I did, but it didn’t necessarily bring me that joy. So what are all the things that bring you joy. So two parts. The last part is then the last circle is what is it that that you can make money at because if we’re doing it for a job, we want to be able to make money at it. So where those three circles overlap, we, we call that the sweet spot. And so just by doing that one exercise, it can really be eye opening to see if you’re in a place that really doesn’t feel rewarding or where you’re not fulfilled.

Cindra: And I think from your own experience, you can draw from this question, but also from your experience as a coach like, what’s the power of working in this sweet spot by, you know, really thinking and working towards what you’re good at. And what you find joy yet. And we can be paid for what’s, what’s the power in that?

Pam: Superpower that is really interesting because what we’re good at and brings us joy is oftentimes a strength and we’re so good at it we don’t recognize it ourselves, we think, oh, anybody can do this or anybody can do that. But that’s not true. If we’re really good at it and it brings us joy. We’re going to be successful because we’re inherently good at it. We’re, we’re inherently on top of our game when we’re able to be in that energetic place and so a lot of us decided, or take it for granted because it’s something that we do well. But we really need to be mindful of that. Because if it is something that matches up then a lot of times we’ll be able to have financial success with it.

Cindra: So what if there are people who are listening who who say, like, okay, great idea. Okay, um, but you know, I can’t quit my job because of this or you know yeah i don’t i don’t really find joy in what I’m doing. But, you know, given the economy. I can’t really make a change, you know, or maybe I do want to become a coach or have my own business, but all of that is scary, right, and some and I don’t want to just, you know, quit my full-time job. And you know just dive into something when I’m not sure I’m going to be successful. So what might you give in terms of suggestions for those types of people who might be listening?

Pam: Well, that was me. Yeah, I didn’t do it all in one full swoop it took me a while to figure out what the new thing was and then to get educated, I had to go back to school. I had to learn how to start a business. And so, for people that are listening and I had to manage my risk. I couldn’t just stop having an income. So my first suggestion is if you’re not ready manager respite still do the exercise and see what’s out there that that you can take baby steps towards and so when we have that hope when we know that there’s something you know for unhappy if there’s something that we can move towards then that’s going to give us more energy. Even in the current job that we have that we may not like as much because we know that there’s

something out there for us. So that’s one strategy the second strategy is if it’s impossible. And for some of us, it is to make a switch like that bring whatever that that that thing is that you really love and you’re passionate about into your world as a hobby or something else you can do. So for instance, a woman that I’m actually working with now is not able to switch careers. And so what she decided to do is she really is interested in giving back and making a bigger impact and so what we’re doing is we’re exploring what that bigger impact is and then how can she volunteer to be able to get that fulfillment or she’s even playing with the idea of starting a foundation of some sort. And so you’ll get that from fulfillment, even if it isn’t the paying job at the time.

Cindra: Yeah, I think that’s impactful, because I think there’s some people who feel maybe like they can’t make the change or by working on their side passion or their hustle for a while. You can make that big enough that you can maybe quit that job that you don’t really feel fulfilled in

Pam: Exactly, yeah.

Cindra: Yeah, yeah. So I was thinking about all the cool things that I want to talk about with you, Pam and I’m thinking about you know just what led you to where you are today. So tell us about, you know, is there an impactful turning point that impacted your life or tell us a little bit about something that was powerful that led you to where you are today?

Pam: Yes, you know, we hear so many stories about taking adversity and turning it around to an opportunity. And when I was growing up, I was very obese and I was teased and bullied and all of those things I was really a painful experience. And the last one that would be picked for sports teams and things like that and so that was really, really difficult. And then I’m that I entered into, you know, and younger adult years and I did all sorts of dieting, to be able to manage my weight. And I was really successful because I’m determined, and I can get things done. And so I would lose that way. But then it would come back and let me wait and that would come back and I thought, well, this is going to be a dime. I’m afflicted with this and I’m probably should just live with it, but then I had this other idea. I was going to a health club at the time, and some of the women there is said that they were runners. And so I thought, okay, remember this. Okay. Pam, you’re going to make yourself run for a month. After a month, you can evaluate if that’s not what you want to do to help you manage your weight. And so I did that I was determined I stuck to it. I, I ran it wasn’t pretty. I did it really early in the morning when people weren’t around and I ran for a month. And then what happened at the end of the month I liked myself better. I felt a little bit more fit, but it was weird syndrome, what it did to my brain. I am confident. I felt more sure of myself. I like myself better and so at that pivotal point I decided to continue running and that actually changed my life because I was really fortunate that there was a trainer at the gym and after I ran off. You know, I started doing five k’s we build our way up and the trainer was really helping me and he said, you know, Pam, you should run a marathon. And I thought, No. You gotta be kidding. Chubby Pam. My last name is Solberg so kids used to call me so big. There’s no way in the world that I could run a marathon, but you know what he believed in me. He believed in me and he planted that seed in my brain.

And I thought, well, what if and I couldn’t get rid of that thought. So one thing led to another and I did. I ran my first marathon in our home state here of Minnesota grandma’s marathon, the local one and I ran other ones within the United States. And I started doing more and more of them. And I felt better and better about myself and just one day I would think I had this transformational thought I shifted I shifted my brain from I run marathons to it’s just small word. I am a marathoner so it was like I run marathons is kind of a transactional thing. Yeah, you know, you do lots of marathons and you stepped into I am a marathoner, but that was a game changer. That was transformational those I AM statements.

Cindra: And I’m hearing that like the transactional is like I do, but the transformational is like I am like I goes from like doing to being and I also heard a few things in your story that are really powerful, but it was like this one person who is kind of providing you the suggestion. And even though you didn’t believe it at the time. You just kept on asking like, what if and I think that could be really powerful strategy for people who, you know, aren’t sure right away that they can do it, but it’s like okay, just imagine the what ifs. And over time, then maybe convince yourself that it’s possible?

Pam: Mm hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Right. Yeah. It took a while. I didn’t sign up the next day.

Cindra: So now at this point you ran a marathon it on every continent. How cool is that I know there’s only a handful of women who who’s done that. So I’d love to hear your experience of the most impactful marathon that you’ve ran and why it was the most impactful?

Pam: Yes. So fortunately, I’ve been able to use this this new way of identity to travel the world. How cool is that there’s a marathon anywhere and everywhere. You want to get with. So for those folks that are interested in travel. It’s really a great way to see the world. So not only running on all the continents. I’ve had an opportunity to run a marathon at the North Pole geographical North Pole, but also at Mount Everest. Wow, you know that the marathon hat was most impactful was the marathon at Mount Everest, because it’s not like your typical marathon that you see around here in the States. It was really an adventure. And so we got as far as Luke law and we were able to then hike on mountain trails.

Cindra: Okay.

Pam: It took us two weeks to travel the same trails that the Sherpas go on and the people that actually summit Mount St. Mount Everest. So we went on those same pathway. So there’s only one way. There’s only one way to get there. And that is by foot or if you take a helicopter, or if you ride a mule, or a yak. So we were on those same trails. It took us two weeks, two weeks to get to the starting line. Mount Everest base camp and during that time you have to acclimate to the altitude of course because there’s a phenomena called the acute altitude sickness and if you try to ascend too fast. You can get really, really sick. And so our group of 25 people, three of them had to be Mad Men medically evacuated by helicopter because they contracted acute altitude sickness, which can affect anybody. You can be in the best shape, but it’s just a chemistry thing. And so they had to be taken away so every day, it got just a little bit more

tenuous and the higher up. We got the the accommodations were really minimal and, you know, not running water, no phone access, it was, it was pretty crude out there. And so finally getting up to base camp, which is 17,585 feet. We had to stay two nights at base camp, which is unusual, they don’t let people stay at base camp, unless you’re going to go higher up with a client climber there in Nepal. So we stay two nights to get you even further acclimated and the race started the next day, though the race itself the marathon was actually descending from base.

Cindra: Wow, okay.

Pam: So what was interesting is that in that race. There was only 137 people. So you can think about over the distance of 26.2 Miles people get pretty well spread out. So there were times during the event where I didn’t see anybody know I didn’t see anybody in front of me or anybody behind me and here we are up in the mountains and there’s lots of spews off the main pathway. And it wasn’t marked all that well. And I started to get a saboteur hijack, I got so hijacked I was so afraid because I thought I was going to get lost.

Cindra: I can imagine.

Pam: And I didn’t know where I was and I my brain was going crazy. You stupid idiot. Why did you think you could do this, you here you are in. You’re smarter than this. How did you ever get yourself into this situation, you’re going to get lost and then they’re going to have to send a helicopter to find you and my mind went just don’t want her style. And then I remembered not only did I do physical training, but I did mental training and I had a mantra. Okay, it goes like this. I am strong. I am smart I am safe. I got this. Okay, strong I am smart I am safe. I’ve got this was, I am statements. And what happened after that was I repeated that statement over and over and over in my brain. So those sabotaging thoughts can derail me and I kept going one step after the other one step after the other and 12 hours later 12 hours I ended up coming across the finish line. It was pure dark and headwear headlamp and but I made it. But I made it. Yeah so grateful for that opportunity to be in such a bizarre part of the world, which really turned out to help my confidence even more.

Cindra: Wow. Well, a couple of things I’m hearing from that story is, I think we can all relate to times that our brain gets hijacked and I think especially when you’re in a really scary situation like that. If you don’t, you know, you know, if you get lost, you know, will you stay alive. They’re gonna have to come find you, you know, and our brain can just kind of make up the worst case scenario, congratulations on the finish line. How amazing is that to be able to say that you ran a marathon at Mount Everest and we’re one of 137 people who are even at the starting line?

Pam: Thank you. And I wasn’t last so about people by me, but I didn’t. I had no good at that point, like the time doesn’t matter. It’s all about finishing.

Cindra: So tell us a little bit, you mentioned something that I want to help clarify for people who are listening like tell us about how we can hijack our ourself and ways that we can even

sabotage our success because there’s a lot of different ways. But tell us, like how you understand that and how that relates to all of us who are listening?

Pam: Yeah, well, similar to you know the story that I just shared, you know, there’s a, there’s a, quote, if your mind perceives it to be true. You cannot believe anything else. Okay, if your mind perceives it to be true. You can’t believe anything else. And so if you believe those sabotaging thoughts I I don’t deserve this. I can’t do it. I’m so full of fear that I’m not going to take the first step. We’re not going to do it. It reminds me of a parable. You may have heard this before, about a villager that was his mother was ill, and so he needed to go to the next village. It was a few miles away. And so he waited until he was done with his work and it was kind of getting dark out. And so he took off on the path to go help his mother, and as he was going down the path in front of him, and it was, you know, getting darker and darker he’s, he says a snake, the snake in the path and he knew that it was a venomous snake and that he wouldn’t be able to survive if he if he got any closer to the snake. And so he wrapped a tree to keep themselves safe from the snake. And then he kind of waited it out any could really see any that law, just wait for the snake to move on and finally, you know, it was middle of the night and he couldn’t see anything. So he just stayed in the tree all night long, full of fear, full of fear behind he needed to get to his mom. Well then dust came and you can see a little bit better. And he came down from the tree and he looked and written front of them, what he thought was a snake was actually a piece of rope.

Cindra: Oh, wow. Yeah.

Pam: What we believe to be true. We can’t conceive anything else. And so he let that that belief that it was a snake sabotage his efforts to get lung and how often do we do that sabotage sabotage ourselves with things that aren’t even true, you know, the only meaning anything has is the meaning that we give it even if the meaning is not true.

Cindra: Hmm, yeah.
Pam: I love that story because we do it all the time.

Cindra: Yeah, and I’m thinking about. There’s so many ways that we can apply what you just said. Pam, I’m thinking about this time period of Kobe, and now it’s really easy to go to the worst case scenario about at least you know when it all happened like my first thought was, like, am I ie alone. It helped us like this really irrational. I had to back myself up but you know it’s really easy, I think, to live in fear. So tell us a bit about how we might notice the sabotaging thoughts and like, and then how can we can address them?

Pam: Yes. So that’s the big part notice them because for so many of us their patterns their patterns that we use, or have had all of our lives there so insidious that you don’t even know that that is happening. Yeah, I mean, you’re saying, yeah. So what do you think when I say that.

Cindra: Well, I think about the ways that I even get in my own way. And it’s like, maybe I don’t post something on social media because of you know what people might think, and I think that comes from my childhood of, you know, like feeling like accepted. And so I think there are a lot of these small ways that we get in their own way from really playing big with our life?

Pam: Yeah, absolutely. So one of the patterns that I had growing up, and rightly so you know my folks went through the depression. And so that was a hard that. Well, what we’re going through now is hard. That was hard and so the pattern that evolved from our home was that life is hard. Yeah, so if you want to try a new thing. Well, it’s gonna be hard and. And so, you know, I’ll tell them myself technology if I have to learn a new system or something for my work in my immediate thought is, oh that’s gonna be hard. That’s getting out. But that’s not necessarily true. So anyway, that’s how those patterns. It just comes so we So we have those and how do we mitigate them. That’s the question. Right, what we said just a moment ago, was the first thing we have to be aware

Cindra: Yeah.

Pam: We’re not aware of that negative pathway that negative thought pattern then then it can derail us what are the first steps.

Cindra: What are some other ways that you see people kind of getting in their own way, or for calling it saboteurs like give us a little some other examples of ways that you see this play out in coaching and in people’s lives, because I know as a coach, he will tell you a lot of things. They may be wouldn’t tell other people. So you get to really know kind of their own mindset.

Pam: Yeah. So there’s a number of Sabbath tour patterns or way of thinking and I’m affiliated with positive intelligence by Sherzad Tremaine and so he groups them into various categories, for instance, one is a controller, so that that kind of a patterning. So each of the saboteurs has a has a strength aspect to it a person that has a sub saboteur controller tendency they know how to make things happen. They, they know how to and a lot of leaders have this. And so I work with a lot of people that that have this tendency, but we know how to get things done. We know how to make the strategies.

Pam: And we like to make sure that things don’t go sideways so we like to control situations we need people like that. But what happens is when these seven tour patterns get out of control, then it can be really devastating for instance, especially in the work setting. If a leader has that controller tendency, they don’t delegate. They want to do everything themselves because they are the ones that know how it needs to go. Or maybe they don’t collaborate with their team as much because they feel that their way is best. And the way other people think may, you know, it may be inferior. So we kind of watch that. So that’s just another instance on how these saboteurs play out. So it’s not always lack of confidence or self-doubt there’s other thought patterns that can be equally as disruptive.

Cindra: And I have his book right here. I read it. A few years ago, so it’s kind of cool to like hear you talk about it. So Pam. When you think about you just said like awareness is kind of the first

step of understanding how we might get in our own way and sabotage our success. What should we do from there, in your opinion?

Pam: Yes, because awareness isn’t enough. We have to be able to shift our mindset. So if you think about it like a while we want to do is intercept those neural pathways sure sounds work is based on neuroscience and read a lot of research. So if we have those saboteur thought processes. Not only controllers. One of them but hyper Achiever and and hyper vigilant. There’s all sorts of related themes or patterns being aware as the first step because it’s like a superhighway we when we get hijacked our neural pathway we go right down that pathway. And so the first step is to be aware and we need to. So we need to intercept them. So the second is the first step is intercepting that that natural pattern just being aware. A second thing we need to do is to then it’s like a switch. We want to switch out that neural pathway into a new neural pathway and build that new neural pathway so that switching place is called a PQ rep: positive quotient rep. Okay, what do we mean by that we want to disrupt that negative sabotage your pathway. A horror empowering pathway. And we can do it using hyper focus on a physical sensation of our body hyper focus on local sensation of everybody that’s a PQ rep. So we all know this one. It’s been around forever. We’ve heard this, take a deep breath. Yeah, right. That gives you that pause, that’s that that’s that switching mechanism breath is a PQ rep, so we can switch into a more empowering part of our brain Shahzad calls it the sage brain, but some other ones that we can do a really, really cool one of them that I love is you rub two fingers together. with such attention. So, what we want is you run a really focus over here, we want to not focus on that saboteurs pathway, but we want to intercept it and focus on our fingers rub them together with such attention that you can feel the ridges on both of the fingers. hat’s a pattern disrupt. You focus on your feet and wiggle your toes like feel all your toes. You do that right now.

Cindra: Yeah, I am. Like my little pinky toe isn’t moving so well. It’s hard to hard to do.

Pam: Again, we’re intercepting PQ stepping away from that negative pathway to a more empowering pathway. So wiggling your toes is another one and o there’s many of them that we can do. But the key is, it’s a pattern disrupt or drop the pattern. So you’re aware and interrupt you feel the emotion you intercepted you do PQ reps. And then the third one. Okay, then you’re in a calmer part of your brain to be able to have more calm clear headed laser focused action. Nice to make a decision or to respond in our relationships, rather than to react with anger. It’s just giving that pause and being able to create that new neural pathway area in your brain. So you can come from a more empowering place.

Cindra: And so after we disrupt the pattern right the negative pattern or the way that we might be sabotaging our success. Do we then do you think replace it with something more empowering or is the last step just more about like directing your mind to making a decision and taking action?

Pam: So it comes down to some ways that we can use that part of our brain. Our sage part of our brain by being in that relationship with that other person or whatever we’re doing by

having more empathy towards them. Okay, so we can choose empathy responding to the person as opposed to being angry. Another one is you can respond with curiosity, especially for these leaders that have a controlling tendency with curiosity. Oh, I wonder what why so and so thinks that way and so there’s lots of ways that we can access more curiosity more innovation and more ways to be able to act from a more empowering place.

Cindra: Awesome. How often would you say that you find yourself disrupting your own negative patterns like every day. It is it many times throughout your day or kind of tell us how you might use this personally?

Pam: Well, it’s so interesting because we call it mental fitness and we equate it to physical fitness. So just think about going to the gym, right, or marathon. We talked about that. And I know you’re a marathon or two. You don’t just decide to go out run a marathon or you know when you go to the to the gym, you can’t just you know, lift 100 pound weight if you only have a muscle that can lift a 10 pound weight. And so little fitness is the same you build up these new neural pathways over the course of time so Sherzad program is brilliant, because what he does is he has us use an app on our phone. We all have our phones with us. And this is our mental fitness gym.To be able to do gym exercises at periodic times throughout the day we do just short disrupt short laps short pattern disrupt us PQ and choose again throughout the day. So he’s designed this app to train our brains and to build mental muscle over the course of time. So what happens is then you have more capacity.

Cindra: Yeah.

Pam: To choose a more empowering response to anything in your life. And it builds up over time. And they’ve actually done MRIs and brain studies and things like that and they see how various areas of your brain lights up and the more conditioned, you are with mental fitness and doing those exercises, the stronger your brain becomes to handle the pressures that we all are encountering on the day to day.

Cindra: I like what you said. Pam about that we can choose our response right not just react to like with heightened anxiety or fear. And, you know, I’m thinking about how our perception is really so important in terms of any situation that we’re experiencing. Tell us a little bit about your perception of that or where you know your perspective of that stems from

Pam: Well, one of my favorite quotes is from Dr. Wayne Dyer when you change the way you think of things, the things you think of change.

Pam: And so it just shows how powerful the mind is and how powerful some of these disempowering thoughts server tours can really limit your life. And so we can shed ourselves. and manage them how put manage or shed some of them. Yeah. Then we could step into being. And living the reason why we’re here on Earth or our passion living our why and stepping into being able to share our talents and our gifts with other people and living a more fulfilled life when we get out of our way.

Cindra: I think ultimately that’s what we all want right is to be able to live. How we really want and to follow our passions and why we think we’re ultimately here so fun to talk to you. Pam, I got a couple of closing questions that I want to ask you about and I always ask people about a time they failed and to share with us a time they failed and what failure means to you, how would you answer that question Pam?

Pam: Um, well, there’s many of them. So, a time that I failed. You know, if I go back to my weight loss days I read that failure after failure after failure after failure. I can remember when Thomas Edison. You know, I got up and down and up and down. And oh, I’d be so disgusted with myself and I remember Thomas Edison got asked one time. You know, you don’t have this quite right. But you know you invented the light bulb, but you fail X numerous amount of times and Thomas Edison said, well, I figured out what doesn’t work. And I think that’s true, with all of us with all the failures that we have is you know, find out what doesn’t work. And fortunately for me and my story that I shared earlier, I found that running did work. But, also to know that anytime we fail when we learn by it. That’s the key. And we can turn any failure any situation or any circumstance into a gift or an opportunity if we have a situation and turn it into a gift or an opportunity, sometimes it’s not right at the moment. Sometimes it’s later on. But in my own example. Oh my gosh, I’m so grateful that I you know, got bullied like and teeth because it caused me to make change. And I look back and a lot of my life and life’s work came from that situation. So anytime we have a failure to really try to look at the gift or opportunity there.

Cindra: I do my best. Pam to do that as well. I think, you know, we’ve done a lot of of we’ve gone to a lot of fun events together and I know both agree with this idea of, like, can you see these difficult moments as gifts or opportunities. How would you suggest people do that because I think that’s hard for us, you know, especially when you think about all that’s happening in the world. Cash what happened at the Capitol or I’m also thinking about all the politics right now all the things that are happening with coven in our take the changes in life. How would you say people can actually do that. What’s, what’s the steps they might take?

Pam: Well, sometimes, like I just mentioned in the moment you can’t see what that is right now until it’s run its full course. But, you know, a good step is, is to and I know that you have to use this in your work is to control the controllables. There’s so much going on in our world right now that is so outside of our control. So, what is it, where can we focus, you know, we hear Tony Robbins say where focus goes energy flows. So if we’re focusing on all of the bad things. Then, then we’re going to feel bad. So if we can focus on the things that we can control just those little things. You know, being closer to your family or a patent gratitude has such a big part of being able to change our, our mindset to a more empowering point of view because we can’t feel two emotions at the same time, we can’t feel fear or anger or disappointment, frustration, all of those and feel gratitude and love. At the same time, our brain won’t let us do that. So one strategy, in addition to focus on what you can control is to more often as not to try to focus on the things that you really, really love your, your beautiful family your furry family, the things that that you really love. And so that will put your mindset into a more of a state of gratitude and that can help shift us.

Cindra: Awesome. What have you been doing during this time period can test to make sure that your mind is working for you, not against you, it and you’re not sabotaging your own success. Tell us a bit about your daily practices?

Pam: Oh, yes. So a daily practice is that I have a morning practice and so every day I get up and it’s different for everyone, but some of the things to have a morning practice or a morning ritual that really helps you set your day off is you could meditate or you can do some type of reading or you can journal or you can be out in nature or you can think about, you know, like I just mentioned things that you’re grateful for. And so I really gotten into a really solid morning practice and it really helps me start my day in a more empowering way.

Cindra: So I’m sure that’s something you’d encourage all of us to consider. Right. Like, what do we do in the morning and just to get our mind right.

Pam: Absolutely, yeah. It’s a game changer.

Cindra: Pam. I’m so grateful for your time and your energy today. It’s so fun to talk to you. You went to my dearest friends and I go to you and I’m struggling with things so I wouldn’t. Thank you so much for your friendship, but also the value that you provided people today. And here’s a few things I wrote down that if people didn’t take notes during this time they should. So I love the quote what you said is like what we believe to be true. We can’t believe anything else. I think that’s powerful and it also makes me think about how you shouldn’t believe everything you think it because when you do it becomes true. It’s like, okay, then you can’t really see anything else. So that disrupting the ways that we sabotage our success I appreciated what you talked about of being aware but then using a p q r to help us disrupt that negative pattern and then be empowered to choose our response. I love just the conversations and the stories of growing up and how that was an opportunity for you that goes even you were able to

Cindra: Reframe all the struggles into opportunities and loved hearing your story about Mount Everest and the person who introduced you to running and this idea of like taking this I AM phrase and using that as transforming your how you see yourself right that’s what I heard you do with the I am a marathoner so thank you so much for joining us today. Pam. I’m so grateful that you’re here.

Pam: Thank you Cindra. Our friendship is one I really, really treasure. So it’s been great to be on your program today. Thank you.