The Hidden Cost of Playing It Safe With Money, with Dr. Margie Warrell

26:50And she's like, I consistently deliver results. I work really hard. Everyone knows I know the business really well. And how come this guy, he'd got that role and how come this person. And she's a little resentful. And I said, well, have you let the higher powers to be here know what you want? She goes, no, because I'm not one of those people that's going to go and like jostle. I'm not egotistical. People should know what I want. And she said, that's not my style. I don't do that. And I said, okay, everyone else is getting a role because they're going out and letting people know what they want.

27:21And they're hustling for it. And you want to sit back and earn gold stars and wait for someone to come and offer it to you. And sometimes that happens. But these other people are showing that they were really hungry and they're going out there and they're being super assertive. She goes, well, I don't want to look like I'm too ambitious because I don't really care. And I said, yeah, you do. She didn't like to be seen as anything other than a really humble person. She didn't want to be seen as egotistical. And yet in not wanting to be seen as egotistical, that was egotistical. So I'm like, what's another story you could tell yourself?

27:57And where she came out was that I'm fully deserving and wholly worthy of bigger roles, but I need to get out of my own way and I need to let people know what I want. And I said, yeah. And that's not because you're egotistical. It's also what's the value that you want to add? You want to be someone who adds a ton of value. And so by shifting her story, it enabled her to have some pretty important, crucial conversations that she wouldn't have had otherwise because she was stuck in a story of, oh, I'm a really humble person. That's not what I do. Even sometimes the labels we put on ourselves can hem us in.

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29:49This Friday, the NBA on Prime tips off with their debut doubleheader. First up, Boston brings the action to the Garden as the Celtics face the New York Knicks. Then out west, it's a battle of the superpowers as the Lakers try to poster the relentless pace of the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Celtics and Knicks, who has the most hustle in defense? This game will come down to who wants it more. And the Timberwolves and the Lakers, it's two Western Conference heavyweights going toe-to-toe. Buckle up, folks. This one's going to be electric. Celtics-Knicks, T-Wolves and Lakers. Coverage starts Friday, 7 o 'clock Eastern, only on Prime.

30:41You mentioned a life of immaculate mediocrity, which is so sticky. It's so visually compelling. If someone who's listening to this recognizes that in themselves, if they heard that phrase and went, oh my goodness, I'm living that life where it's like Pleasantville. Everything's fine, but inside I'm screaming. How do they even know which labels to shed? How do they know which stories to break? How do they begin that process of unraveling all of the multifaceted, multi-layers that got them over the span of 30 or 40 or 50 years to that space? Yeah. Obviously, it's rarely done in a moment. You've spent 30 or 40 or 50 years getting to that, so it's not going to be undone in a moment.

31:35But it could be because in any moment, we can make a decision to live differently and to pursue a different path. But I would start with going back to that step one. Sometimes I like to play a little exercise with people. If I had a magic wand and I could create for you the most inspiring life that you could imagine, what would you be doing? Who would you be doing it with? What would people rely on you for? What would they admire you for? What would they be grateful to you for? And play with curiosity and wonder about what you would love to be doing if you weren't living the life you are now. And it's not about throwing out all of our lives.

32:18It's not about selling everything and putting on a white robe and going to Africa or India or somewhere. It's about giving yourself permission to connect to a vision for your life that's different. Maybe it's not wholly different. You know, it might be, well, I would travel more and I wouldn't be waiting for my husband to do it with me. Or I wouldn't be waiting for my friends to do it with me. Or I would go somewhere on my own. And so one is getting that vision, any vision. But secondly, then what story would you need to tell yourself for that to become a reality? What story would you need to believe that I have everything it takes to live a big, wild, inspiring life?

33:03I have everything it takes to pursue a whole new path for myself. I'm smart enough or I may not have been adventurous up until now, but I can become more so. And I'm going to start today with one small thing. And so giving ourselves permission to connect to something new, but also, yeah, what story would you have to tell? Sometimes I think, well, think of someone you know that's living a life that you find inspiring. If they could step into your body right now and they could take over and go, wow, and put their mindset into your life, what do you think they'd be thinking for you? All of the wild and wondrous possibilities for you.

33:44Every story we tell creates emotions and our motions are what drive action. And so what other story could you tell? How does that shift the emotional state that you're in? And you know, when I've met people, encountered people who are living lives of, when I say immaculate mediocrity, they're outwardly beautiful, yes, but often shrinking. Often there's a lot going on in their inner life. I think it's super important to just stop and look within ourselves and sometimes look at hard truths, sometimes ugly truths, sometimes inconvenient truths. We can easily be deceived, but the person that is the easiest to deceive is ourselves.

34:18And we often tell ourselves what we call vital lies. Daniel Goleman wrote about this in his book, Emotional Intelligence. We tell ourselves stories that make us feel better about our choices. sometimes they're not wholly true right so we tell ourselves these vital lies because when I tell myself I can't do that it gives me a get out of jail free card to try I have four children but I once at one point in time I had three children and I had moved from Australia to the United States I didn't know anyone I wanted to start a whole new career path in coaching and I'd always thought I would love to have four children.

34:59And I remember telling people, oh, I can't have four children because you can't have four children and have a career. And I'm actually want to start a new career and a new country. I have zero networking. And so I definitely can't have four children and start a new career and a new country. And I had one particular friend, Janet, and Janet cared more about me than she cared about me liking what she said, which is a good a sign of a really good friend. And she said, I call bullshit on that, Margie. You can have four kids and start a business. Like, of course you can. Of course you can. And I was like, but I don't know anyone who's done it.

35:38She goes, well, I know people. Let me introduce you to it too. So she literally gave me some role models because I didn't know anyone. But it helped me realize what I was telling myself was not true. I was telling myself was true, but it was not true. So go out and look for evidence to prove yourself wrong. Go out and find examples and evidence. And maybe it's people that are doing the very thing that you're saying can't be done. I mean, that was my example as a mom because I didn't know any women. I didn't grow up surrounded by professional women who had multiple kids pursuing successful careers.

36:14I grew up on a dairy farm in rural Australia that didn't exist in my world. So I had to expand my horizons and look for that. But to anybody who's thinking, ah, I want to live a bigger life. I know I want to do it. I would say, one, sit on something in your future that's a little inspiring. Then ask yourself, what would I need to believe? Try that story on for the next 24 hours. Try that story on. Notice how it makes you feel. Notice how if you believe that story, how it shifts not the emotions you're feeling, but what you see as possible. Maybe you're like, well, I could reach out to that person or I could join that group or it's going to expand what you see as possible for yourself.

37:00All right. So step one is to focus on what we want rather than what we're afraid of, rather than succumbing to negativity bias. Step two is the reframing of the stories that we tell ourselves and the labels that we assign to ourselves. It strikes It makes me that both step one and step two are very cognitive. What's step three? Step three is about embodying courage. In the book, it's titled Breathe in Courage. So now we're leaving cognition and we're going into the physiological aspect of it. So fear lives in our bodies, whether we would want it to or not. It lives in our tissues. Our issues live in our tissues.

37:41Often we're carrying around anxiety from experiences that we may have had as children inside of us in ways we don't even realize. There's a lot of people, I've done a lot of work in executive coaching, and I meet people who I say live from the neck up. It's all intellect. They're very bright. They keep it all neck up. They don't express emotion very much. They're not very connected to their feelings. They intellectualize what they're feeling. oh, I'm feeling sad, I'm feeling angry, I'm feeling, versus like really feeling their feelings. And so connecting in with our physical presence is a gateway to resetting the fear that's in our bodies, to resetting our nervous system.

38:29So that's one part of this step. So for those who are listening right now, you might be thinking to yourself, you know, I don't think that's me, I'm cool. Well, I would ask you, think about, is there anything in your life that causes you to feel any level of stress or anxiety? And then ask yourself, where do I feel that in my body? I feel it sometimes in my chest, like I get a tight chest. So sometimes taking the deepest breath that I've taken all day can help to reset that anxiety. I mightn't be super anxious. I'm not having an anxiety attack, but just carrying a little bit of it through the day.

39:14So I sometimes say to people, take the deepest breath that you've taken all day right now and take in a breath and notice that breath going in and out and doing that diaphragmatic breathing where it goes right into the bottom of your belly, allows a little bit more oxygen to go up to your brain and can help to reset. but also noticing where you feel any tension in your body or even any tingling or any numbness or anything can help us to connect to where fear lives in our bodies. Because it's not a one-way street where I think a fearful thought, to your point on the cognitive aspect of it, I think a fearful thought and now I'm feeling anxious.

39:55Yes, that's true. It's a two-way street. We can feel things in our bodies before our brains have even kicked in. A car comes racing towards you. Our bodies jump before our brains have even kicked into gear. Recognizing that, that's a two-way street. That gives us a target for intervention in our own physiology. The research shows that how we hold ourselves, our posture, it sends a signal to the brain that says, oh, this is how we're feeling. If I hold myself all hunched over or I'm just saying I'm depressed and I've got myself all hunched over, like I'm feeling deflated and low self-esteem, that tells my brain like, oh, there's not a lot to look forward to.

40:38The future is not very bright. If I hold myself like, I've got this, I sit taller in my chair. I'm doing it right now, talking to you. I lift my chin up. I look out ahead. I widen my eyes. That sends a signal to my brain, I got this, I can handle it. So holding yourself like you've got this. And so walking taller, sitting taller, talking taller, all of that sends these signals to our brain that, ah. And so our physiology impacts our psychology. And when we can really anchor in the presence of our physical being, it unlocks in us a power. It empowers us in different ways. I started that chapter of the book talking about the haka.

41:25And in New Zealand, for anyone who's ever watched the All Blacks, New Zealand's famous rugby team, which is one of the most successful sporting teams on the planet. It's had an extraordinary winning streak. And they're famous for starting their games with this haka. And it is this traditional dance of the originally a traditional war dance of the Polynesians, New Zealand and other Polynesian countries, it not only helps to ignite testosterone in the body, but it connects them to each other as well. And so we do that in our own physiology. You don't have to be practicing a war dance, but in how we hold ourselves physically and connecting in with the people around us, which is another part of that.

42:08And that is the people that we talk to, that we hang out with, impact how we feel about ourselves and our ability to show up for life and bring our bravest self to life. So it's always important to also be guarding your energy. Who are the people that you're spending time with? I mean, even listening to great podcasts that embolden you, empower you, expand your thinking, that in itself is part of your environment that you create for yourself. So, you know, being really present in our bodies and being able to reset from our nervous self to our bravest self. Sometimes I say, close your eyes, put your hand on your heart, breathe in courage, breathe out fear, breathe in courage again, and connect to that bravest part of you.

43:01I think we all have a deep, brave self inside of us, but often our fear is louder. And so we have to reconnect to that part of us that transcends the physical domain. It's sort of a spiritual domain. We connect into something bigger than ourselves. And from that place, we often get enormous sense of clarity. I call it our true self. But if you have a spiritual belief system and you believe in some force that's greater than yourself, by taking a moment through the breath to connect to that, it can reset you and help right-size your fear and put it into proportion to what's going on around you because often our fear is disproportional to what's going on around us.

43:46In addition to profiling the New Zealand rugby team, you've also profiled a Navy SEAL, and they also use breathing techniques as a major part of psychosomatic fear mitigation and fear management. Can you talk about that? Yes, absolutely. Well, of course, people who are in situations where there is legitimate high risk, and let's face it, SEALs voluntarily put themselves in some of the most dangerous situations that exist. And so they have to be able to manage that fear response really well. You think of a bomb disposal expert as well. They've got to be able to regulate that fear response in their body.

44:28They've got to keep their breathing so modulated. You've got a device there that could go off like they have to be so calm. So one of the ways that they do that, I mean, there's something called the mere exposure effect. So they expose themselves to increasingly graduated amounts of danger over time. and they get normalized, absolutely. And they get better able of what's called effect tolerance, the ability to tolerate what might for other people be an extraordinarily stressful situation where they'd fall to pieces. Alex Peace, as an extraordinary man, his story was one that I was really honored to share because it spoke to the different dimensions of courage.

45:13and when we think of Navy SEALs, we think of men who, I don't think there's any women, maybe there are, but largely men who have an extraordinary courage in that they go into places that are highly risky. They lay their life on the line and yet it's not about laying our life on the line. It is sometimes about laying our pride on the line, our vulnerability on the line And his story of being on the edge of what was one of the most treacherous waterfalls in the world was a dam in Venezuela. And his fear of being perceived as a coward in front of his other fellow SEALs kept him from speaking up and expressing a concern.

46:00And so it was easier, I'm not saying easy, for him to go off into that treacherous, incredibly tumultuous water than it was for him to say, I have concerns about this being too dangerous. And so I won't share all of the story, but what happened, what unfolded was an extraordinary set of circumstances in which someone lost their life. For him, courage is about being willing to look to be very, very vulnerable, to be perceived very negatively by others, to be perceived in that situation as being cowardly, as not being brave. He didn't want to be perceived that way. But yes, that psychosomatic, that physical aspect to it, I mean, that's something obviously anyone who is putting themselves in those situations has to be able to manage really well and get trained at that and normalized at that.

46:58And we can do that. I mean, I want to say here something I haven't touched on yet. There's two core dimensions of courage. One is the management of fear. And the second is the willingness to act in the presence of it and the presence of risk. And so one, we have to be able to manage that fear as our fear response so that it's proportionate, not disproportionate. But secondly, it's being anchored as something that's more important than what we're trying to avoid, that our mission is bigger than our fear. Obviously, anyone who wants to live a big life has to continually make sure their mission, what they want, transcends what they're afraid of.

47:34It's notable that you brought up the courage to look cowardly. There's another book. It's called The Courage to be Disliked. which is a staple, I think, for anybody who's in leadership. It's a must read. Yeah. We all like to be liked. We are wired for belonging. We want to be included. Alex, he really wanted the approval of his fellow SEALs who are much more seasoned than him. But all of us want to be liked. We want people to think well of us. We want to be included. We don't want to be taken off the invite list for things. And yet, sometimes being true to ourselves requires being willing to be disliked, being willing to be taken off the invite list, being willing to speak up and say something that we know is not going to be popular, to make a decision that we know there might be people who are actively going to work against and may say things about us that we don't like, will be criticized, may be vilified.

48:31I look at the political arena right now and we don't always agree with people who have different political ideologies than us, but there is something to be said when people have the courage to stand by what they believe in, even when others don't agree and they might be marginalized by the party they belong to, you know, and they pay a price for it. But we go, you know what? I know that's my response when I see people that are really so values, so anchored in their values, they're willing to risk losing their power because of what they believe in. And I'd like to see more of that. I think we have a deficit of courage in many of the senior leadership ranks.

49:14We want to see people who are driven by character and principle versus pursuit and the retention of their power. Right. The willingness to go against your own party, which is sort of a microcosm of the broader human experience of the willingness to go against the tribe, your village. Yeah, well, I mean, it's easy to get pulled into ideological echo chambers that make us feel safe and that common enemy intimacy. Courage comes in many different shapes and forms. One is that management of fear, but two is that willingness to take action, even though we're afraid of what might happen if we do. And you know what, if there was no risk involved, it really wouldn't require courage a lot of the time.

49:58There is sometimes a risk. People mightn't like it. Your venture mightn't work out. It mightn't land exactly the way you want, but you're willing to do it anyway because you believe in what you're pursuing.

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51:49let's go to the fourth step so we've talked so far about first focusing on what you want rather than what you fear second on re-scripting the stories that you tell yourself and the labels you give yourself and then third on breathing and on embodying courage embodying courage let's go to the fourth step. Yes. The fourth step's where the rubber hits the road, Paula. That is, up until now, it's about getting our focus in the right place. It's about having the right mindset, the story we're telling ourselves, and physically getting ready to take brave action and step into our courage gap. And this step four is where we do.

52:29And that requires embracing discomfort. Step four is step into discomfort. Our lives expand with our willingness to get uncomfortable. And anyone I've met who's living a big life is regularly breaking ranks with their comfort zone and has found some semblance of truce with being uncomfortable. They're not sticking with what is safe and familiar and comfortable. They're willing to actively do things that are uncomfortable. They'll have difficult conversations. They'll risk rejection. They'll put themselves out there in ways that other people go, oh, I don't want to do that. So as I think about what it means to step into discomfort, I often share a story about growing up on my dad's dairy farm and getting my first horse.

53:13And every morning before school and afternoon after school, I would go out and I'd bridle him up and I'd saddle him up. I was 10 at the time. I didn't really know what I was doing. In the beginning, I had this wave of kind of nervous nausea as I would walk out because the horse seemed so much bigger than me and I didn't have a lot of skill. but every day I would go out there and I would bridle him up and I would saddle him up and day after day, week after week, my discomfort grew less and my confidence grew more and I also grew more competent. What that experience taught me was that growth and comfort can't ride the same horse.

53:53When we're only doing what's comfortable, we're never going to do what's possible. We deprive ourselves of realizing how much we can do. We deprive everyone else of the value we could bring, the gifts that we have to share in the world. And so embracing discomfort is there is no shortcut to courage. We have to be willing to get uncomfortable, but acting anyway. And that's where I distinguish confidence and courage. A lot of people say, I wished I had the confidence. I wished I was as confident as you. I wished I felt more confident. I wished I knew I could do this and I wouldn't mess up. And I'm like, if you're waiting for confidence, you could be 100 years old and you're still waiting for confidence.

54:38You have to act with the confidence that you wished you had. That requires courage. That means doing it even though you're afraid. I mean, courage is fear walking. Courage is speaking up despite the nervousness in your belly that this person's not going to like what I say. Courage is quitting something that you dislike doing and starting down a new path. Courage is saying, I'm going to write a book. It's sharing publicly something you'd love to do. And even though you're not 100 % sure you're going to succeed at it, that's what courage is. And that's not comfortable, but it is a muscle and courage is a learnable skill.

55:21And so the more every time we consciously choose to step forward amid the unknowns, amid the uncertainty, we actually strengthen the neural pathways in our brain. So part of the kind of the neurology of that, I mean, I'm sure you've heard of that saying that neurons that fire together, wire together, you know, those, the pathways in our brain, when we are doing that thing. We're a little bit afraid. We haven't done it before. You're not a master because you haven't done it. Of course, it's a little scary. But every time we do that, we strengthen those neural pathways and it gets a little bit easier.

55:56We build that effect tolerance. And it's why when people look back at what they were doing at 21, starting out in their job and they had to give a presentation to their team and they were terrified, now you don't think twice about it. It's the same thing. It's why we have to train the brave. Courage is a muscle like going to the gym, when you practice it often, even in little ways, it makes it easier for the future. For a person listening, they currently work a nine to five job. They feel meh about, they have some ideas for different things that they might want to do. They're not quite ready to take a big leap yet, but what are some small day-to-day things that they can do?

56:33Yes, there are many things that we can do every day. Often they're not as obvious to us in the moment. But if you think about your day-to-day, think about the people that you might interact with. Think about when someone frustrates you or you're feeling a little resentful of something. Take a pause. Ask yourself, what might I do or say right now if I was being really brave? So whenever we're feeling resentment, resentment is a symptom of a request that we haven't made. We're resentful that we're not getting something. We're resentful this we've been passed over. What is the request that you haven't made of an unmade request?

57:20That's going to take courage. Maybe you're resentful that someone's using your time up too much. Okay, there's an opportunity. Sometimes it's saying no. We say yes to too many things and actually we need to say no. And if someone ever cancels something on you and you have what's Jomo, the joy of missing out because they've cancelled, then ask yourself, why did I say yes in the first place? If you're committed to anything right now and you're like, oh, I would love it if someone cancelled that, think about what is it that you're committing to today that's actually a silent invitation for you to practice courage?

57:55If you have said something that you know has maybe been a little hurtful or insensitive to someone else, maybe courage for you today is saying, you know what, I'm sorry I said that. I apologise. That was a little thoughtless. Or maybe it's sharing what's really going on with you as someone and saying, you know what, I'm struggling a little bit right now. I'm not sure about what I want to do and I feel like things aren't going the way I want. And sharing a little of your own vulnerability with someone, there's an act of courage. But outside of that, it could be go and eat a cuisine that you never have.

58:27Try something that you haven't done before. Go off and do a Zumba class. I don't know. Do something that's new, that's going to put you in a new environment that you go, well, you mightn't choose to do it again, but do it anyway. Because sometimes trying something new can help us realize, you know what? I can do that. And that encourages you for the next thing to come. And what is that fifth and final step? The fifth and final step is titled, Find the Treasure When You Trip. and it's probably the one that is the most personally relevant for me in my own growth in recent years. So there's two aspects to it.

59:14It's about finding the treasure in our failure. We're not always going to get everything right. We're going to trip up as we go through life. We're all, I call us human becomeings as distinct from human beings. We're all on a path trying to figure it out. None of us have got it all figured out. We might for three and a half nanoseconds and then something happens and we realize we haven't got it figured out. It doesn't matter how successful you are. It doesn't matter what you've achieved. None of us have got it fully figured out. And another level, another devil. So when you get behind every mountain, there's another mountain.

59:48And so as we go through life, we're either going to have moments where we try something and we fail or where we fail to try. And each of those moments hold opportunities for us to learn. Yet often we don't learn the lessons because we're so hard on ourselves about our failures. We don't look at them and go, what is the gift in this failure for me? What is the nugget of gold that will help me be a little more wise, that will teach me something, that will help me move forward in a smarter, more intelligent way, that will help me be a little more humble, that may help me connect more deeply with others because I'm human too and I'm fallible.

1:00:30And one of the key aspects to this final step is forgiving ourselves for our own fallibility. We will all mess up. We will all fall down. Sometimes in those moments when we know we should say something, we'll wimp out. And so extending a little grace inward to yourself and forgiving yourself for being the human that you are, But knowing that you are wholly worthy regardless of whether you achieve some big goal or not, you're worthy innately, period. I mean, each of us, by virtue of our birth, is innately worthy. And I think when we can embrace our full humanity with love and compassion and forgive our faults and our flaws and our fears because we're human, it actually enables us to rise faster when we fall and it emboldens us to be braver more often because we're not going to risk being brave if we don't know how to get back up when we fall.

1:01:31And so making peace with our fallibility, but also resetting our relationship with failure. If you knew that failure didn't define you, that you were never defined by an outcome of your actions, it would actually enable you to learn more and we cannot ever control the output of our actions. None of us control the output of our actions. We can try. You can have the most meticulous, brilliant plan, but you cannot fully control the output. You can only ever control the input. And so when you can make peace with failure, when you can reset your relationship with it so that you can learn all that it has to teach you, it actually helps you upgrade the input so that you can get better outcomes.

1:02:16But if when you fail, you're like, I don't want to tell anyone about it. I'm going to blame someone else. I'm going to brush it under the covers. I'm going to beat up on myself as a total loser. We miss out on the lessons. And actually, then we deprive ourselves of being able to step forward that little bit more, to quote Henry Ford intelligently. You know, I've seen when with failure, two very polar ends of the extreme. There are those who place all the blame externally and will blame all of these other people or circumstances or various external factors. And then there are the ones who have adopted a mindset of taking radical responsibility for everything.

1:02:55They have a very strong internal locus of control. But where that can become dysfunctional is when it crosses into excessive self-flagellation. Absolutely. We are tougher on ourselves than men, which is ironic because women are generally known for being very compassionate. It's a kind of a feminine strength as we're so compassionate, we're empathetic. But we're not very compassionate on ourselves. We're tough on ourselves. but that doesn't mean we can't learn to be more compassionate. Kirsten Neff is the leading researcher in self-compassion and as she said, anyone can learn to become better at self-compassion but this excess flagellation, there's a lot of shame associated with it.

1:03:39I'm such a loser. We're over-personalizing what we did. The fact is failure is an event, not a person. I may have failed in selling a million books. It doesn't mean I'm a failure. It means I didn't get the outcome A that I would have liked to have got. So for all of us to recognize that who you are is not defined by your failures and it's also not defined by your successes as well if we get overly identified with our accomplishment period one way or another. But on the other side of it is blaming everyone else. Obviously, it's two sides of the same dysfunctional coin. Neither of them serve you.

1:04:22Neither of them serve anyone else. And so for people who go into a lot of blame and really they're telling themselves a victim story, by the way. One of the stories, back to step two, re-script what keeps you stuck and scared and living too safe, is when we tell ourselves victim stories and villain stories. It's all your fault, Paula, that this didn't work out or it's all, I'm the victim, I'm the powerless person here. Either of them don't serve us. So I think recognizing neither of those ends of it work. It's like, okay, I need to take responsibility for my part in this. What did I do or not do?

1:04:59But don't over-personalize that. I'm not a failure. I failed to plan enough. I failed to get enough stakeholder engagement. I failed to understand the market enough and research it. Maybe I should have done a small pilot before I launched it. Too big a scale. Learn the lessons. You know, I spoke to Richard Branson a few years ago. He launched Virgin Cola. Some people may remember that. Massive big launch campaign. And it was a huge publicity fail and a huge loss of money. But he did a full-blown audit. Like, what did we do wrong? And he said, I didn't want to lose the value that that failure held.

1:05:38Like, what was it? we totally missed. And he said, we realized we got too far away from our mission, which was always to make what is existing better. How do we make a better flight service or a cell phone or whatever it is? And I think that holds a lesson for all of us. Don't fail to learn from your failures. When you do, you're failing twice, but make peace. You're going to fail. It's okay to fail, but don't fail to learn from your failure. And when you can embrace your failure as a prerequisite for what it takes for you to succeed, then it's actually going to allow you to put yourself out there way more often.

1:06:16I do a lot of speaking and I'll speak at sales conferences. I'm like, if you'd reinterpreted every rejection as, okay, what's the learning? Maybe I didn't pitch it as well as I could have. Maybe they're not interested. Take the learning, move forward, but don't be defined by the rejection, that's going to free you, liberate you to put yourself out there a whole lot more. And ultimately, you're going to be much more successful. Thank you for spending this time with us. Where can people find you if they'd like to learn more? Thank you for asking. Yes, I would encourage people. You can find me on social media at Margie Worrell.

1:06:48And you can also head over to my website at margieworrell.com. On my website, you'll find there's a whole lot of information about the courage gap, as well as the workbook, things you can download and a quiz. And of course, it's available wherever you like to buy your books. Well, thank you. Thanks, Paula. Thanks for having me.

1:07:11Thank you, Dr. Worrell. What are three key takeaways that we got from this conversation? Key takeaway number one, loss aversion blocks wealth creation. Understanding how your brain processes the idea of financial risk can help you make smarter money moves because your brain is hardwired to be twice as sensitive to potential losses as it is to potential gains. This means that you are hardwired to be too conservative when it comes to investing, career growth, entrepreneurship, and overall risk-taking. Daniel Carnahan, a behavioral economist, he wrote a book, Thinking Fast and slow, that our brains are twice as sensitive to what could be lost versus what could be gained.

1:08:01And so because we're constantly alert for that, whether or not we're meaning to be or not, it means that we tend to be super sensitive to potentially bad things happening. And often our attention is on those bad things. The money we could lose, what could go wrong. We tend to turn our forecasts for the future into fear casts. That is the first key takeaway. Key takeaway number two, false humility costs you career growth. Many professionals mistake passive competence for humility. They wait to be noticed rather than actively advocate for themselves. And that includes actively advocating for raises and promotions, which is, as you know, a major focus of mine and the reason that I'm building a course on how to get a raise, which is currently still under development, still in beta.

1:08:54But the reason for that is because it's essential. It's essential to actively advocate for raises, for promotions, for that growth, because you can't just sit around hoping that somebody is going to notice you. They're not, they're busy. So if you shift your mindset, you can accelerate your career advancement while staying true to yourself. Recently, I was talking to someone and she was frustrated in her job. And she'd been passed over for a couple of bigger roles and other people around her were getting bigger roles. And she's like, I consistently deliver results. I work really hard. Everyone knows I know the business really well.

1:09:33And how come? And I said, well, have you let the higher powers to be here know what you want? She goes, no, because I'm not one of those people that's going to go and jostle. I'm not egotistical. People should know what I want. Finally, key takeaway number three, convert failures into strategic insights. Every business setback or investment loss contains really valuable lessons. Like there's a lesson every time that you F up. And I know that the naysayers are going to be like, well, isn't that a cliche? Oh, Pollyanna, silver lining. I'm sure you can find a lesson out of anything. That's a great coping mechanism.

1:10:13But what we know is that the most successful investors and entrepreneurs, we're talking centimillionaires, billionaires, they rigorously analyze their failures. You remember last summer here on this podcast, we did an interview with the co-founder and CEO of the parent company of Taco Bell KFC Pizza Hut Habit Burger Grill. The company is called Yum Brands. We talked to its co-founder and former CEO. And the first thing that we talked about were all of his failures. He launched Crystal Pepsi and it flopped. It flopped with a big Super Bowl ad campaign. We talked about that for the first 20 minutes.

1:10:58We'll link to that interview in the show notes if you want to hear it. But the broader point is that the most successful people are diligent about analyzing their failures. You know, I spoke to Richard Branson a few years ago. He launched Virgin Cola. Some people may remember that massive big launch campaign. And it was a huge publicity fail and a huge loss of money. But he did a full blown audit. Like, what did we do wrong? And he said, I didn't want to lose the value that that failure held. And he said, we realized we got too far away from our mission, which was always to make what is existing better.

1:11:41Don't fail to learn from your failures. When you do, you're failing twice. So convert failures into strategic insights and then take action on those insights. That's the third and final key takeaway from this conversation with Dr. Margie Warrell. Thank you so much for tuning in. And if you enjoyed today's episode, please do three things. Share it with your friends and family. Subscribe to our newsletter, affordanything.com slash newsletter. And make sure you're following us in your favorite podcast player, whether that's Apple Podcasts or Spotify or whatever else you use to listen to this show.

1:12:18While you're there, you can leave us up to a five-star review and please write a few words, talk about what you enjoy about the show. We have a course on how to invest in rental properties. It's called Your First Rental Property. And it's for anyone who wants to get their foot in the door in the world of income producing real estate. It is a cohort-based course where you and your fellow peers go through the experience together as a team, as a community. And because it's a 10-week long cohort-based course, we only offer it a couple times a year. And we are opening our doors for enrollment Monday, February 10.

1:12:57So mark your calendars. Monday, February 10, we open our doors for enrollment to your first rental property. If you want loads of details, head to affordanything.com slash enroll. That's affordanything.com slash enroll. Thank you so much for tuning in. This is the Afford Anything Podcast. My name is Paula Pant, and I'll meet you in the next episode.