Wake Up Eager Workforce 
Episode 124 Transcript

Suzie Price: Today I'm sharing my wake up eager year review and plan process with you. This simple, effective, and fast three step process will help you create momentum going into this new year. We're already at mid January now this is a great process to do any time of the year, but certainly is relevant in the start of the year, so I'm eager to share that with you. I've used it for years. It really helps me. You're also going to hear from six past podcast guests. They're here today, and they're going to share their top focus areas from 2025. They've got great things to share, and I think some of the things they're going to share are going to inspire you and interest you. And sprinkled in the mix, I'm going to share how the three sciences in the TriMetrix assessment help guide me when I think about actions I want to take, and gives me clarity about why I feel the way I feel and why I want to do the things I do. So I think whether you know the TriMetrix assessment or not, the science explained around it and how I'm applying it will be helpful and I'll also, along the way, share what I'm focused on for 2025. I can't wait to share it with you, Michael. Hit it!

[00:01:09] Intro/Outro: Welcome to the Wake Up Eager Workforce podcast, a show designed for leaders, trainers and consultants who are responsible for employee selection and professional development. Each episode is packed full with insider tips, best practices, expert interviews and inspiration. Please welcome the host who is helping leaders, trainers and consultants everywhere Suzie Price.

[00:01:36] Suzie Price: Hi there! Thank you for tuning in to the Wake Up Eager Workforce podcast. I'm Suzie Price and here we cover everything related to helping you and the employees in your organization. Build a high commitment, low drama, wake up eager workforce. We also focus personally on building a wake up, eager life. And that's what this episode is focused on today. It's all about you. It's all about your life. It's all about that idea of being intentional about what you want in your life and revisiting that is something we have to revisit on a regular basis. And I think this process is going to help you do that and give you lots of examples and lots of insight that hopefully will inspire you to want to do it. This is episode 124. It is building momentum, wisdom wins, and a wake up eager 2025. That's what we want. So again, I'm going to share my process. The wake up eager year review and plan process so that you can celebrate your wins and get real clarity, sharp clarity on what you want to do in this year. It's going to help you privately evaluate, think about what worked and help you be very decisive and intentional. You're going to gain some energy and motivation from what our past podcast guests share. And then, of course, I mentioned the tips and insights about how I'm using my using my assessment results for my plan. We're also introducing a new segment. It's called wellbeing 2.0 aligning with Your Excellence.

[00:03:03] Suzie Price: We'll have this in every episode this year with our new regular guest, Douglas White, and I'll share more about Douglas in this segment. You'll get to hear the first episode about wellbeing 2.0. In this episode for the show notes today and links to everything we talk about. Go to priceless professional wake up eager 2025. Okay, let's talk about this plan and your year in review. So we've got to look back to know what we want to do going forward. And to me, looking back, I don't really often like to do that. I like to move ahead and go fast, you know, of an urgent nature, which we'll talk about later. Gets me in trouble sometimes, but it is a good thing. But I do find every time I look back and I've been doing this process for 15 years, every time I look back, I am surprised on what happened during the year. I think I know what happened. I'm the one who experienced it, but I forget a lot of the things that I've done, you know? And I've done this process organically. And so now I've systematized it a bit so that you can do it too, because it's helped me so much. I know I picked it up from somebody else, but I don't know who it was because it was so long ago that I started doing it. But every time I do this process, I'm energized. I'm excited. It helps me move forward every year.

[00:04:20] Suzie Price: And I have had a lot, a lot of progress personally and professionally every year and have been much more intentional about what I do and what I say yes to every year. So a lot of great momentum. Here is the three step process. There's three words you want to remember review glory, self-diagnosis. And you want to do them in that order. We're going to do the review. We're going to do some glory and we're going to do some self-diagnosis. And this process is going to help you evaluate how 2024 was for you personally and professionally, how you spent your time, how you feel about the actions you took, what you're going to celebrate, what are you going to continue to do, and what needs to change? And that's where the review, glory and self-diagnosis come in. Let's look at the review. And this again is specifically how did you spend your time personally and professionally. You can take as much time as you need. My first pass this year took about 60 minutes. I have revisited it, added to it, clarified things, and in fact I'm still reviewing it. I'm about to ready to put it to bed though. So take as much time as you need, but it doesn't even have to take 60 minutes. I had my iPad out and my phone out, sitting on my favorite seat in my house, and then I end up coming up to my office and doing it too. But look through your calendar.

[00:05:38] Suzie Price: Start in the first month of the year and go through every week. See what you have on your calendar. Great place to start. And then start matching key topic areas together so that you have a list. So every time I saw a riot in my calendar about something related to the podcast, I put it in that category. You know, what was the episode? Who was it? Who was I talking to? TriMetrix training presentations I listed those other training classes. Certifications, coaching. You'll have your own buckets or categories, but they're your main life areas. Personally, it had to do with my own development. What did I do training class wise for myself? Or it could have been personal development or professional development. I had I have a partner that I work with, and so how many meetings and time did I spend with that? And that was on my calendar. And then all the personal time with my husband, with my family, with my friends from high school and friends around here, my colleagues, whatever is on your calendar, bucket them together so that you can see them in those categories. And once you're complete with that, step away and let your thoughts percolate and revisit it. As I mentioned, you know you'll have fresh insights and new things to add. Once you have a pretty complete list. Do. Step two. Glory. Glory means to take pride or pleasure in something. To rejoice. To delight in something to relish, appreciate, value. You value your achievements.

[00:07:05] Suzie Price: So I want you to look at your list. You've got all those buckets and you've got all those individual items in those buckets. What are the buckets and the items that you're most proud of? What feels the best? What's most interesting? What makes you smile? What gives you energy? Just thinking about it. No judgment here. You're not trying to say whether you did it right or you did it perfect. But as you revisit it, you go, yeah, that was good. I like thinking about that. Then share those items with someone. And so this is going to be the people that you trust, people who are rooting for you, people who aren't jealous. It's for me. It's my husband, some of my good friends, my coworkers over the years to say, ten years ago I didn't have as many people that are like that in my life. And through this process, I've cultivated intentionally more of that. You want to, you know, think about that, but only share these things with people you that you know are going to be also happy for you. Because this isn't about bragging. It's about recognizing your progress. It's about remembering what gives you joy and a sense of pride. Because we have a busy world and people are asking us to do a lot of things, and if we're not clear about these things and that these things matter, then we're going to get caught up in other people's goals for ourself. And so it's I like to verbalize it.

[00:08:24] Suzie Price: So I told my husband about what I was happy about about my work, about, hey, did you realize that I did this many trainings around TriMetrix? And I can when I just think about it, I feel good, and he's good at listening to me about that and saying, that's great. And I can tell him why I felt good and the revenue and the but mostly the learning and that people are getting more insight. That really feels like my mission. So it makes me feel good to talk about that, you know? And I've been focused on over the years about balance between work and personal, you know, making sure that I do have those good people in my life. And so I can see that now. So I was able to share that with a good friend and then health and wellbeing and fitness and all that. It's always been on my mind, but I've put it in the back burner, you know, many years ago and through this process I've been able to put it to the front. And so my health nut friend, I was able to say, hey, guess what? I was consistent all year. And she's like, oh my God, that's amazing. And so we talk about it, so journal about it, share it with somebody that's going to cheer you on. Just make a big scene about it. Glory. That's why I use the word glory, not just, oh, celebrate glory.

[00:09:29] Suzie Price: Glory means hallelujah. I'm happy. This is great. So know that the things that felt best to you, big or small, are not throw away moments. We tend to do that about things that we feel good about or that we're we want to crow about. Oh, it was no no thing. It was nothing. You know, it was no big deal. It is a big deal. Because when we get to do what we are interested in, what gets us excited, that's a clue into some of our top strengths, some of our top talents, some of our top interests, what motivates us. Which is why I'm such a fan of the TriMetrix assessment. It reveals that in the assessment. So then you can make the connection. You know, you can put it together. Oh, I did that. I feel this way. This is related to this capability that I have that is unique to me and important. It was born into me. It's been nurtured by me and now I want to use it. It's our guide to our wake up eager life. And for me, a wake up, eager life is at the end of my life. I have no regrets. I mean, sure, there's things that I'm not going to be, you know, happy about all the time. But I've made peace with those. And I'm spending the most of my life doing things that matter to me. Being around people that matter to me. Waking every up every day. Saying I love my life.

[00:10:54] Suzie Price: And if I don't love it as much today, I will tomorrow because I'm in charge of that. So that's a life without regret. And that's what this process is. It puts you in charge. You don't need to wait for someone else to celebrate your wins. You be your own advocate. And the more you are your own advocate, the higher your sense of self will be. The greater your role awareness will be, the greater your self-direction will be, which are all things that are measured in the TriMetrix assessment. And every time you do that, you have more to give others. You have a stronger version of yourself. So as you be your own advocate, you can then with energy it's not draining. Advocate for others so you can be that friend that celebrates somebody else's wins, helps them see who they are and who they can be, even if they're not living it in the moment. But we have to have that first. So we're going to do some glory, right? You're convinced? I hope so. Step three. Now this is self-diagnosis. This is where you're going to allow yourself to be critical, and you're going to do it privately. And you're going to be completely honest, because you don't have to share any of this with anyone. But I'm going to share mine with you, so that's okay. But don't think about what others feel or think when you look at this. Don't think about what's going to please them or you know they really like that you want to look at.

[00:12:15] Suzie Price: I don't like this. I spent a lot of time doing this. I don't want to do it again. Or, you know, Jeff would want me to continue to do that because that made a lot of money. Try to put them aside right now. You love those people and they love you, but you're not going to think about them right now. You're going to think about what you think, and you're going to feel what you feel around these items. And you try not to judge yourself. You're just going just going to acknowledge, hey, I didn't like this. You're going to notice what feels off. So it might be subtle. You know, maybe it was a good thing, but it feels off when you look at it in the big picture of what you did all year, how much time you spent on it. Maybe you feel tense around it. It's just out of balance. And maybe you just feel a little less good. That's okay too. So think about that. Think about how you feel. Think about how you think. Um. Don't discard any thought or feeling. You want to kind of hold on to it in the moment. This is your private thing to do because it's being honest with yourself. And I'm telling you, it'll make you so much more self-aware if you honor your feelings because you can move through them. There's an opposite side of each feeling.

[00:13:20] Suzie Price: So if you can't feel the goodness of this or the anger you feel about having doing this, you can't find the other side of that. So examine everything and then think about, do you feel this way because you wish you had you'd spent more time in this area or less. Is it because you thought it would be better than it was, and you didn't get as many calls, or you didn't get as much business? Or maybe you got too much business or the wrong kind of business. Is it because it's an area area that is not where you want it to be, or is there something missing from the list? So let your observations for this section percolate for a few days. If you feel like it, chat with people you trust. Definitely journal your thoughts. I think I've shared before. I use the day one journal I used to write on notebook paper, but that doesn't always convenient. So I've got an app on my iPad, on my phone, and on my computer, and I've got it in categories. I have my personal stuff and it's locked. Nobody else could go look at it. But journal your thoughts on this, and I want you to then come up with 3 to 5 answers to these two statements. This is what I'm going to continue this year. This is what I'm going to do to do different. And so I'll give you a little example of my private and critical self-diagnosis.

[00:14:39] Suzie Price: It's a light one. So it's kind of you know, it's not a big, big deal for me to share it with you. So there's no no shame in it. I'm sure there's other things I could share would be harder. But why do that? Right. But let's look at this one. I saw I had these eight training programs that when I looked at them. I like sharing this one too, because it's subtle and I could have just missed it. But those eight training programs did not feel good when I looked at them at the time. I was excited about them. So there are eight spaced throughout the year. They weren't metrics related. There were other things I liked doing them because they were a challenge. I made money. It helped me sharpen my skills. There were a lot of good things about it, helped me create some new programs or refine things that I was interested in refining. And I met a lot of really good people in those different programs. But as I as I looked at the big picture and I looked about what excites me and what I really care about, those things, those programs did not fit what I care about. They did not further that. So I could see now that each one of those programs took a lot of time away from what I really want to do. So I didn't have time to refine as much as I wanted my TriMetrix training portals, because I was busy doing these other programs.

[00:15:56] Suzie Price: I didn't spend as much time touching base with key clients that I really care about, who are really invested in trying metrics. And that's what I care about. So that bothers me. I only produced 12 episodes of this podcast. I love doing this podcast. I wanted to be a journalist when I was growing up. So this is my version of doing that. Plus, it helps me explain things and share things and highlight people. And there's just so much joy that I get out of this. I only did 12 episodes and I barely got those done, and I didn't put a lot of time into it as much as I wanted. So that was a disappointment. And what I've realized is, because I took on those other programs, my level of urgency and intensity. I had a good year. I liked my year. I like being urgent and intense, but boy, it was over the top trying to squeeze it all in. Getting up really early, sometimes, working really late to try to do all my personal stuff and professional stuff. It was a challenge and I liked it in one sense, but I also could feel okay. Way to urgent. Way too intense. So here are some things that I have on my list that I'm going to do different. I'm only going to what I'm going to do differently or do more of is only try metrics related work. I have created a specific plan for outreach for my top clients, and I've got a timetable that I'm going to use to implement those things.

[00:17:18] Suzie Price: And then I've made a commitment. I'm going to produce a minimum of two episodes a month, and I'm going to spend more time making them. So the time spent in making this episode is way outpaces. You know what you would think? But creating these things and getting people together. But I like it. I want to do it. I want to do it. So I'm going to do that and I'm going to have new segments, more guests, and I'm going to have more things that go deeper into my metrics. It's helped me reremember our purpose, which is helping individuals and organizations build a wake up eager workforce and create wake up, eager lives. And we do that through the practical application and deeper understanding of the metrics assessment. That's that's what I want to do because it helps us highlight our strengths. And it's helped me tremendously. So there you go. That's what that process creates. And, you know, right now I'm clear. And because I'm clear right now, when things get muddy and crazy, I'll at least have an anchor because I've shared it with you. You're going to be my my pal and friend that hears here's this is my way of putting it out there and holding myself accountable. Find your way of doing that, and just remember and try these steps. Review glory and self-diagnosis in that order. I hope you'll do this because I want your own version of clarity.

[00:18:40] Suzie Price: This process allows you to help take stock, celebrate your achievements, get where you want to go, and tell you what, if you don't already realize this, I know you do because we're all super busy as life moves fast. A lot of people want us to do a lot of things, and if we don't reflect and adjust, we risk achieving goals that aren't aligned with what we truly want. And the thing that I have seen family members have at the end of their life, and there's nothing more painful than to see it, is we end up with regret. And I refuse for that to be my life. I am so determined to do what I came here to do, so I want that for you. I want you to have the no regret. I want you to celebrate progress. Don't only only focus on what's not working. Honor. What is? Here's a big thing. Accept imperfections. Every year you do this, there's going to be things that you forgot. When I do this again next year. And I go, oh, I said I was going to do that. Didn't quite happen. There's life isn't a straight arrow from one side of the road to the other. Up. It's just not. We think it is. And we beat ourselves up when we're the ones going through kind of detours and distractions and quote unquote learning moments, but that everybody's life is that way.

[00:19:57] Suzie Price: We look at someone who's succeeding. We think, oh, they just went straight to the top. No they didn't. They had all kinds of detours, distractions and learning moments. And everybody has their own version of what the top is. I don't need to be famous, but I need to be better at what I'm doing, and that's enough. So embrace the detours and the changes and the squiggly lines. You know, instead of it being a straight line up, there's a squiggly line moment. You embrace them, so don't be hard. This is not about being hard on yourself or just hammering yourself with these impossible goals. Pay attention to what you want, and then set some 3 to 5 things that you're going to do differently, or do the same and and talk about them, share them, and use this process to reremember what matters to you. Don't let external expectations dictate your path. Pay attention to what moves you and how you feel. All right, so that's the process. And it's the perfect time to introduce you to this new segment we're going to do with our guest Douglas White. He's the CEO of Soul Integrated Athletics. And the topic is wellbeing 2.0 aligning with Your Excellence. He will be a recurring guest this year. And let me tell you a little bit about him. And then I'm going to have you have him share his segment to you. And he he is talking about what I have been talking about, and I've heard each of his segments that he's already created, and they're good.

[00:21:23] Suzie Price: They're a great way to focus and a great way to help you tune in to what matters to you. So who is Douglas? He's he's a former pitching coach and director of pitching for the Los Angeles Angels. He had a 17 year career in the Major League Baseball, and he was also with the Houston Astros. He's a four time minor league champion and part of two World Series winning teams. He's had a very interesting background. He's super nice person, and you're going to feel his heart and see his and gain from his insight. His business that he's creating now is soul integrated athletics, and that probably will involve some personal development training. So you'll have access to him and you can figure out whether he's a match to you. And he's a if he can figure out whether y'all are a match to work together. But currently, him and his team his team are building a platform that combines mental health, emotional wellbeing and athletic performance to help athletes unlock their full potential. Well, I say that we're professional athletes. I feel like I'm an athlete. I got to take care of myself, and so I like that. That's what he's focused on and we want to reach our full potential as well. When Douglas is not working, he's enjoying surfing, reading and meditating in San Diego. So now let's meet delightful Douglas in our first segment of wellbeing 2.0.

[00:22:57] Douglas White: Hello everybody. My name is Douglas White. You are listening to the Wake Up Eager podcast. Didn't even know it. This is a new segment on it. Yes, Suzie Price has invited me to come on to this podcast and we're hitting you with a segment we call emotional Well-Being 2.0 aligning with your excellence. So all throughout this year, 2025, we're going to be hitting you with these segments and giving you some meat and potatoes on emotional well-being. So let's get right into it. What does the title mean? Emotional Well-Being 2.0 aligning with your excellence. Very simple. Emotional Well-Being 2.0 is how do we up our game now in this year 2025? We are all emotional beings. We have an emotional guidance system. We have that navigation inside of us. It's about time we all tap in to it. We use it for what it is. Our emotions are telling us so much, given us so much guidance. We want to make sure we understand how to interpret them, how to use them. It's not a bad thing. Right thing, good thing, wrong thing. It's about how do you feel so you can make better and better decisions. Tuning into how you feel. Making better and better decisions so that emotional well-being 2.0 is having that emotional awareness on a daily basis. Doesn't mean we don't feel certain things or feel a certain way, or try to deny certain feelings. It's not that at all. We want the whole library of emotional feelings, and we'll talk about that more and more as we go.

[00:24:46] Douglas White: Aligning with your excellence. That's about the understanding that you can align with your excellence. You don't have to wait for anybody. You don't need permission from anybody. You are the creator of that. You understand inside of you how to align, how to allow who you really are and so you can Align with your excellence. And that's what we want for you here. And that's why we're doing these segments. So this is what we're going to leave you with today. Observation. Because what we're trying to do here, first of all, in the year 2025 is make sure we have that emotional awareness game, that emotional sensitivity game. And if you're listening and you're like, man, I'm very emotionally aware. Awesome. Because you can always fine tune because as human beings we are ever evolving. And so you can stay up to speed more and more and more with who you really are. So here we go. Observation. What you're going to do is you're going to go out into your life, go out into your world. But we want you to be really aware about observing your world. So how am I feeling as I'm participating in my life? So in the morning, you morning, you wake up. Mm. How do I feel right now? You go and brush your teeth. You go have some breakfast. Maybe you're drinking your coffee.

[00:26:17] Douglas White: Maybe you're alone in your home. Maybe you have tons of people in your home. Who knows? But you're going to observe all of it. And then you're going to tune in how it's making you feel. The conversations you're having, the drive to work, the conversations at work. What are you saying? How is that making you feel? What are they saying? How is that making you feel? Observe your life. And so if you want to, I suggest it. Write some of these things down. Notes page on your phone. Notebook handy with you. This is what happened and this is how it made me feel. This is the conversation I had and this is how it made me feel. This is the experience I had and this is how it made me feel. And right there you're going to going to start tuning into things that you did not know you were feeling, and it's going to be amazing for you because awareness is the start of all of this. We're going to up our emotional well-being in the year 2025. This is how we're going to start it with observation. So go out into the world. Observe. Write your feelings down. No judgment. This is a non judgment zone right. A judgment free zone. We're not trying to fix anything. Solve anything right here, right now. Nothing. Observe. Write down what you feel. Love you so much. Enjoy the rest of your day.

[00:27:45] Suzie Price: So not only did Douglas start this new segment, we had our first episode of 2025 with him and it's episode number 123. How emotional well-being is the key to performance. So check that out. He'll be back later on in this episode to share what he's focused on. You can find that episode number 123 with Douglas. On any podcast app that you use, you just type in wake up eager workforce and then you'll see his episode there at the top. If you're listening to this later on, go look for 123. You can also go to our show notes, and we'll have all of that for this episode with links to all these everything we talk about at. Wake Up eager 2025. If you listen to any of these episodes, share what you liked. Let me know. Leave us a review. Subscribe to the podcast. We'd love you to tune in often this year. So let's now hear from one of our guests about what he is focused on for 2025. It's Steve Byrum. He is a PhD. He's also the founding partner and chief content officer of the Judgment Index, which is a tool that is also tribe modal. It is technically a competitor of tribe metrics. We use the same science, we go about it differently, but we're in alignment on so many things. He is the president and CEO of the Byrum Consulting Group, and he is one of the founders of the Wisdom Council at the Robert S Hartman Institute, which something I've talked about a lot here. You'll hear about more of that with one of our other guests today. But let's listen in about what Steve's thinking about this year.

[00:29:27] Steve Byrum: Hello, this is Steve Byrum. When I was starting to learn about Hartman in the middle 1960s, when I was in college, it's a very interesting time. Of course, it was the time of the counterculture, which may have come a little late to the South, and we certainly were not like San Francisco or Greenwich Village or whatever the case may be, but it was still a time of significant change in the way that we looked at the world and the way we looked at other people, and obviously the way that we looked at our at ourselves to be at a time when you were becoming involved in protest against the war in Vietnam, or times in which you were registering African Americans to vote and helping to try to do something about the racial climate in the South was a very, very, very interesting time. At that time, there were two primary positions that really related to human beings and their freedom and their dignity, their authenticity, all those kinds of words that we used. One, of course, was the humanistic psychology that was most readily identified with people like Maslow or people like Carl Rogers. I can remember in the 22 years that I had a counseling practice while I was a college professor, that I really tried to pattern myself in my my counseling practice after the techniques and ideas of Carl Rogers. And then on the other side, almost a polar opposite of humanistic psychology was the behavioral psychology of B.F.

[00:31:02] Steve Byrum: Skinner that emphasized the way in which he felt like that, either genetically or culturally, or obviously both, that people were determined, uh, it was very easy to see in Hartman that there was a very positive response to Maslow, and he and Maslow were friends and presented papers together and communicated with each other. And so the whole spirit of that time and the way that it affected me, made the approach of Maslow and Rogers and then obviously, Hartman very, very, very appealing. Uh, in the last six months or so, uh, I have gone to be a little interested in that whole issue of freedom and determinism again. And I have gone back and spent a great deal of time and plan to continue to in 2025, rereading Rogers and Maslow, what Hartmann has to say, and rereading Skinner and the positions of the behavioral psychologists. Because in my research thus far, I have found that obviously Hartmann had a lot of good to say about Maslow and about humanistic psychology. His whole idea of the intrinsic value of a human being and the uniqueness of a human being would seem to fit very, very much into that whole perspective. But you don't hear Hartmann saying anything really negative about B.F. Skinner. In fact, there are a few instances in which it looks like that Skinner's whole idea of trying to be more scientific about dimensions of our realities that are very subjective and that are not very well defined scientifically, was very appealing to him.

[00:32:51] Steve Byrum: And so I found myself going back and kind of Regurgitating myself with that whole humanistic psychology behavioral psychology debate. It's been very interesting to me personally thus far, because now there's so much material available, including recordings of debates between Rogers and Skinner. I have found myself liking the position of Rogers more, and wondering what that says about me and my choices, and yet liking the person Skinner more, and finding Skinner to be a much more appealing person to listen to and be around, and to experience something of their attitude and to know something of their biographies now and something of their past history. So that's what I'm kind of going to be working on. I kind of was struck at the very beginning of my work by Heidegger's question of why is there something rather than nothing? And now it seems that the question why am I the someone that I am rather than some other, someone that I might could have been? And how much of that is determined externally, and how much of that is determined internally? So it'll be an interesting kind of exploration. I'll look forward to sharing some conclusions about that in the future.

[00:34:16] Suzie Price: Steve is a thoughtful and energizing person. I'm sure you felt that in his segment. He's super smart. He's written a lot of books. Go check out his episode. It is episode number 75. Axiology influencers why Robert S Hartman's work matters today a discussion with Steve Byrum. And he's also part of a panel discussion that I facilitated at a Hartman Institute conference. And you can find episodes. It's episode 115 and and Steve Byrum knew Robert Hartmann and Robert Hartmann, is the creator of the acumen and axiology science in the TriMetrix assessment. So find all the links to that. Episode 75, episode 115. Here Steve speak and hopefully we'll have him back and he'll share what he's discovered about, you know, why am I the someone that I am rather than the someone that I could have been? And how much of it is a determined externally and how much is determined internally? Mm, I love that. I think about that. I think it's a little of both, but we'll see what Steve has to say. Hopefully he'll come back and share what he's discovered. Check his episodes out. Let's hear from another past guest, another favorite person of mine, Catherine Foster. She is a brand strategist and a fractional creative director. She is the founder of Treadaway, where she bridges the gap between brand and business, her and her business, and employees and team. I should say she is our brand strategist. She's been with us since 2020. I don't really ever want to be without her while I'm doing this work. She helps me think clearly. She helps me brand what we're doing, and I consider her a close colleague and a friend. That, and she's someone I admire. Let's hear from Catherine.

[00:36:07] Catherine Foster: Hey, Suzie, thank you so much for having me back on the podcast to share the mind body, spirit tips that I am implementing for myself for this year for 2025. The energy of a new year is just always my favorite. It feels like a chance for a focused reset, but this year started off much faster than I thought and is already moving at what appears to be a breakneck pace, which means that this mind body spirit alignment is more critical than ever for me. So here's a few things I'm doing for each for my mind. I'm taking more time for restful reading. What I mean by restful reading isn't just sort of reading the business books that kind of excite me and get me really jazzed about my work, but it's something about a fiction book where it just helps release my mind from over dwelling on unimportant things, or the unfinished to do list that's never actually going to be finished, because it's an ongoing work in progress, but it also serves as this wonderful creative reprieve since my work is so creatively taxing in a good way. I mean, my work just involves my creative brain being on so often that a fiction book is just like a bowl of ice cream, but without the negative effects. So speaking of negative effects or not negative effects for body instead of just a dry January, I've opted out of alcohol for the year and maybe beyond.

[00:37:22] Catherine Foster: This really helps my sleep, which is increasingly important for me as a pillar of like all of my health practices, from the physical stuff to the mental. My sleep is just more and more important to me. So. Dry January, dry year and dry forever. Who knows? I'm also working towards a more consistent strength training plan that's going to be focused on progressive overload and functional mobility. So things that again, I think I shared this even on last year's podcast, but really working towards building strength but also building movement, functional movement. Life just feels at ease. And for spirit, this one is kind of new for me. I've blocked off one day each week, every single week, non-negotiable for what I'm calling a deep work day. But it's where I can focus in on projects both personal and professional, whatever that bring me joy and excite me. So things that really tap into my motivators, tap into my strengths, and this ends up being for me, a no email, no calls, no meeting day, which for an introvert like me, I mean, it's absolute heaven. So those are the three sort of four ish focused things that I'll be working on this year in 2025. I can't wait to hear what everybody else has in stock. And who knows, maybe I'll add a couple more.

[00:38:29] Suzie Price: I enjoyed everything that Catherine said. I can relate to the fiction. I have a busy mind, so I just love mysteries. Any kind of mystery is good for me. I like so how she expressed that and her doing a deep work day with no meetings or email or calls is a really good idea. I may borrow that from her now. I interviewed Catherine on the podcast. It's episode number 66 and we talked about essentialism. This is an amazing book and I'm going to talk about that with you, how this book has helped me later on in the episode. But we talked about essentialism, the disciplined pursuit of less. It's a bestselling book by Greg McKeown, and you can get a link to that. I actually would like to go back and listen to that discussion myself. She's a student of essentialism, which is basically what's essential. What's the one thing you can focus on? Does this bring me joy? Everything that we're talking about, what am I doing? The things that matter to me that I came here to do. So you can find that episode. It's episode number 66, and you can get a link to it on our show notes at priceless professional.com/wakeupeager2025. So now we're going to take a start looking at mind body spirit and share thoughts around each one of those. And how what I'm working on. And you're hearing what other people are working on.

[00:39:57] Suzie Price: So I'll sprinkle mine in there as well some more, and also talk about the TriMetrix that I've talked about and how it can help us understand why we overdid something, what our blind spots are. And I'll tell you some of my strengths and my blind spots for a quick review. For anybody who doesn't know what TriMetrix is, it's a tri modal tool. So that's why it's called TriMetrix. It means it gives us three views about ourself. It is and it's three different sciences. So one it talks about our communication preferences how I want to communicate. That's the assessment. And I use a car analogy how I how I tend to drive around. So when I'm working every day and I'm zooming around my office. What do I want? How do I want to communicate? How do I want to behave? How do I want to interact? Those become our strengths and our potential overdues. Because if there are strengths, we do them a lot and sometimes we do them without awareness. And we think, oh, I didn't realize I was overdoing that. So they can become blind spots. So each one of these are that way. The second thing it measures is top interest. So this is what interests me. It's not visible. You can't see it. You know when you're driving around you can see, oh that's Suzie's this because she likes to communicate that way.

[00:41:08] Suzie Price: Or Jim is that way because he communicates this way with interest. They're not visible. But the assessment really tells us, hey, this is what I want to do five days a week. And it's the workplace motivators, it's interests. What? And in the car analogy, it's what puts gas in my tank so it fills me up. It's not visible when a car is driving down the road. You don't know how much gas it has in it, but when you got a full tank of gas, you can go, go, go, and or if you have no gas, you're not going anywhere. So that's what that one is. So that's the that's the second thing. Our top what we're interested in motivated by what drives us. And that is a key insight, especially because it's not immediately visible and it's nature and nurture. We came in with these interests and it's been shaped by our environment. And lastly it tells us about our top personal skills. It's our engine. They're not visible. Um, they'll show up when we're working with people. We'll say, oh, they're really good at working with the team. They're really good at building rapport, or they're not very organized. They're not thinking about strategy, all of those things. And it's it's not on the surface. So we call that in the car analogy. Think about your car analogy under the hood.

[00:42:17] Suzie Price: It's your engine. You can't see it, but it's there and it's driving everything that's happening. And so those are that's what TriMetrix is. So I kind of wanted to give you an overview of that. Each of the areas in TriMetrix that are being measured matter. But the engine the acumen, how we're how we're thinking, how we're going about doing things and making decisions is the strongest and most powerful. We measure all three, but we give a lot of credit to acumen first. So acumen is greater than the other two areas because it tells us things we can't see, but that we need to know and with awareness when we understand, hey, I'm not being very strategic and that's impacting me in different ways. Or hey, I'm frustrated about getting things done. You know, with awareness through this tool, we can grow these areas. So maybe we're hard on ourselves. And the assessment will show that maybe we don't feel in alignment or confident about our role. The assessment in this area, under the hood, the engine will help us see that and with awareness we can adjust. And I certainly have I have adjusted. My internal scores were not as high many years ago and because of the assessment, I am much stronger, so much more resilient. I have a bigger engine because I knew, hey, based on my life circumstances, these things were a struggle for me and now I can consciously develop these areas about myself.

[00:43:47] Suzie Price: It helps me be more clear thinking helps me create more winning moments, a stronger vehicle. So I have experienced this, and I've seen it change other people's lives too. And you'll hear a little bit of that from the guests here today when they're talking about this tool. When you think about metrics and you think about this area that I'm talking about acumen. So let me explain acumen this way. It tends to work with clients really well when we do this. So tell me you have me. You're looking at me. If you were looking at me right now, you'd say, oh, that's Suzie. And you think Suzie's talking and speaking, but she she is doing a lot more. There's a lot more going on. You think I have this one mind that's helping me make these decisions? But within that mind, I have two views. And the two views are how I think and feel about the world and how I think and feel about myself. So world view and self view. And with each one of those views we have three focus areas. So when I'm working in the world, there's mind, body and spirit. And we can measure that. How am I thinking, what am I doing? How am I being. And we do it in both views.

[00:44:51] Suzie Price: We do it in the world view and the self view. So it is mind, body, spirit. Three focus areas in the world mind, body, spirit three focus areas for our self. Think do be same thing. There are just a different way of saying mind, body, spirit instead of mind. We're saying thinking instead of body, we're saying doing and instead of spirit we're saying being. And when I'm working in the world, we can measure in this assessment how we're doing in those three areas. And the graph is called a dimensional balance page graph. And it's measuring this. And so when we look at the first area. So this is a mind body spirit focus areas. If you have taken the assessment and you want to pull it out, pause this. Go get it. Look at your assessment graph and see how much color you have in the blue bars. On the self-judgment or systems judgment. Excuse me? Systems judgment on the worldview and self-direction on the self. View the blue bars. The more color you have, it means that you have some clarity in those areas. So you could factor in that area when you're making decisions. And so they both represent our mind, our thinking, plans, vision, structure, discipline, ideas, creations in our mind, strategy planning. So you can't actually hold a plan. I mean, you might could write it down on a piece of paper, but it's an idea.

[00:46:23] Suzie Price: It's a vision, it's a structure, it's a system. Them. And so lots of color on those two areas in the world, one in the world view and one in the self view. Means that when you're making decisions, you're factoring in that having a plan or a structure matters. You are able to use this area when you're making decisions. If you have less color, you're less focused. Something's happened. Maybe you're in retirement or you mistrust authority, or you've just never been really strong at strategy. There could be a million reasons why you have less color. But what the bottom line is, you're not clear right now on planning your vision for yourself or your vision in your work. And so when Steve, Steve Byrum is thinking about what he's thinking about, he is very highly a great thinker and philosopher, is fully developed. And so he can think deep and rich about that. When Catherine was talking about how she's allowing her brain to rest. So that's why it's it's a kind of a a way to rest her mind. For me, what has helped me in this area is creating systems and structures so that I can be stronger there, so that I can have a clear mind and a clear vision for the future and have a clear purpose, so that if I have that idea, that's one thing we if we have this idea, it can help us stay clear on it.

[00:47:52] Suzie Price: And so that comes from this section of having a structure for ourselves. And one of the tools that helped me create more clarity was a question asked from the book essentialism that I mentioned earlier from after Catherine shared her wake up eager mind, body, spirit, ideas, essentialism, the disciplined pursuit of less and the question that he asks. And that I began answering for myself about seven years ago is if I could truly be excellent at only one thing, what would it be? And when I really contemplated on that, the thought that thought me in that moment was, I want to be a TriMetrix and axiology expert. That was a new thought. I didn't really know. I knew I was excited about it. I had those feelings around it. Every time I did a review of myself and my year, I thought, I need to do more with TriMetrix. And so now it was like, this is what I want to be. If I could only be known for one thing, this is it. And the thought felt wonderful and I felt eager about it. And then I started to kind of judge it a little bit. Well, that's a little too narrow. Nobody else around me does that. That doesn't sound right. And as I shared earlier, I'm still making my way toward the full manifestation of that.

[00:49:01] Suzie Price: I have lots of squiggly lines in between the time I decided that to today. It's not a straight path, but that's okay. I'm making my way. You know, success is never a straight line. So if you can think about knowing that the one thing that you could truly be excellent at and you could be looking for that, It's a great mind trick and a structure to help guide you in this area of building in your mind focus areas. So it's a great one question. It's a great idea to get you thinking about and feeling around for what matters to you the most. And so if I could be truly excellent at only one thing, what would it be? Include that in your review and your self-diagnosis part. So I want to mention some more. I talked a lot about the acumen part of the assessment, the engine, the under the hood. But let me mention some other things that I'm aware of about myself due to the beauty of this trimodal tool called TriMetrix. When I look at my motivators, which is what puts gas in my tank, and when I look at my communication style, how I like to drive around, I can definitely see where my blind spots can take me away from my purpose. So you know. So I make this decision, I can be truly I want to be excellent in this.

[00:50:24] Suzie Price: I want to be an expert in this. Well, I love to learn and I love leading others to knowledge. And I like to do it kind of urgently and really friendly. So if I don't pay attention, I'm going to take on teaching requests that are not in alignment with my purpose. That's what I did seven times last year. And it weren't just you don't just show up for those things. You have all kinds of conversations before you. And for me, if you're me, you customize it. There's all kinds of interaction and time that that takes. While it was in alignment with me loving knowledge and learning and leading people, it took me away from that one thing that really matters. So it feeds, you know, my learning, leading and my talking strengths, you know. So my urgency and my style, how I like to drive around. I'm very high above the energy line in dominance and in influence, which is about a very kind of fast paced kind of talk and think and get things done and being direct and assertive. And I'm very below the energy line in, you know, taking time to think and being cautious. I'm not very cautious. So I can be with awareness. But when I took on those projects I wasn't. So that's just another way you can see how metrics can help us.

[00:51:35] Suzie Price: And I want to share one other mind structure planning tool that I've used 100% this year. So it's something that I read. It's another book, Getting Things Done The Art of Stress Free Productivity. It has been a big bestseller for 20 plus years. It's by David Allen. And I read it years ago because of I always have had this challenge, because of my strengths, which become my overuse of having a lot of things to do. And how do I organize it effectively. So I, little by little, been implementing what is taught in that book. And I did it 100% this year, and I used an app, the Nirvana app, along with Getting Things Done The Art of stress free productivity book processes. I've listened to podcasts. I've read the book. I've implemented a little bit here and a little bit there. It helps me prepare in advance on what I'm going to focus on every week, and every day. Helps me keep track of my ideas, helps me keep projects organized while I'm working with thousands of people every week with this work. So it helps me have more of a mind like water, helps me change the way I get things done. So I do them more immediately, more thoroughly, and more cheerfully, as opposed to always being under stress. I did have too much urgency this year and too much intensity, but I wasn't behind, so I don't have anxiety.

[00:53:01] Suzie Price: I've had anxiety before, I don't, and I attribute it to this clarity about what I want to be an expert at and the getting things done. And this app that is on my phone and my laptop or my phone, my laptop and my iPad. I look forward to having some experts on GTD getting things done and the app this year in the podcast, but those are some minor things for me that are my blind spots, that are things that really help me around mind that I'm going to continue to do. And also sprinkled in, there is some insights about the TriMetrix Trimodal tool. You'll hear some more as we move forward, but now let's hear from Meredith Bell and what she is focused on. Meredith is the president of Grow Strong Leaders. It's an organization that's focused on strengthening character and communication skills. She has an amazing podcast that she's the host of that it is ranked as one of the top two and a half podcasts of all podcasts globally. So look her up. Grow Strong Leaders is the podcast. She interviews some amazing people. She's a kind and caring person. She's been a colleague and friend of mine for 20 years. I'm so glad she was able to take time to comment here and you will hear and feel her energy and her good vibe when you listen to her today.

[00:54:18] Meredith Bell: This is Meredith Bell, president of Grow Strong Leaders. My focus for my mind, body and spirit in 2025 is the word creating. I chose that word to remind myself on a daily basis that I am a powerful creator and that I am always creating. My intention is to create myself and my world as a masterpiece with my thoughts, words and actions. That means I pay attention to the way I talk to myself about myself. I notice if I'm judging and criticizing others in my mind, or if I'm creating them as capable, well-intentioned beings who are doing their best to navigate their way in the world. I have a daily morning practice that I will continue this year, and that is to create myself each day. By writing in my journal, I focus on who I am being that day before I start looking at what I will be doing. The place where I come from will impact what I do and how I do it. For example, if I'll be interviewing a guest for my podcast or having a sales conversation that day, I write in my journal about being loving service to that individual. I then consciously bring that attitude when I'm talking with the person. So my focus is on learning about them and bringing out their unique brilliance, not on how I look or sound. If I'm always creating, that means no matter what challenge I face this year, I will ask myself, given this situation, what would I like to create? By focusing on what's possible, I'm shifting my focus to the positive actions I can take instead of dwelling on the negatives and feeling like a like a victim of external circumstances. I'm excited about what I'll be creating this year in my relationships, in my business, and with my health. I envision myself as more loving and kind, more courageous, more committed, and more joyful. I embrace the unknown and the unlimited possibilities that lie ahead in 2025.

[00:56:35] Suzie Price: Meredith's mantra is wonderful. I am a powerful creator and I am always creating. That's a good thing to remember, right? Even when I'm not aware, I'm creating. I'm creating something. Am I creating something towards what I want or what I don't want? And I love her affirmation of I embrace the unknown and unlimited possibilities that lie ahead in 2025. Awesome. Now, I had a great discussion with Meredith. It's episode number 87 on our podcast and you guessed it, the title is Grow Strong Leaders with Meredith Bell. Check it out. And now let's hear from Art Ellis. He is a PhD, a licensed professional counselor, and he is one of the founders and a Wisdom Council member of the Hartman Institute. And you are going to learn a little bit more about he talks about Axiology, what I have just shared with you a little bit about the one mind, two views, three focus areas, and you'll get a little bit more of that from art.

[00:57:39] Art Ellis: Hello, Suzie. This is Art Ellis. And for anyone who might be listening to this who does not know me, you might want to know that I have supposed at this point, the connection is that I have been associated with the Robert S Hartman Institute since its beginning in 1976. And Robert S Hartman was a Was a philosopher who developed the philosophy and the practice for formal axiology, which is the study of values and how to apply them to our lives and make better decisions and keep our lives in balance. So to address the body, mind, and spirit aspects of beginning this new year, I'll start with body. I need at my age to stay active and to maintain my health with all the things that I need to do that and good diet. I'm signed up along with my wife, Charlotte, in a conservation program that we belong to that encourages us to walk 60 miles in the first 60 days of 2025. So we're beginning that process, not necessarily a mile a day, but the total should be 60. We also have some travel planned to various places, and almost all of those will involve moderate hikes of one kind or another. So for body purposes, that should should carry me through 2025, I hope.

[00:59:15] Art Ellis: Now mind and spirit to me are interrelated. And so I'm going to address those kind of moving back and forth between them as an intro to thinking about this year and the state of things in our country and where we live and in the world in general. It's a challenging time, and having been a scholar of Robert Hartman's for all these years and understanding his history of having escaped the Nazis and then organized all his thinking about how to counter such a negative and evil influence in our world. I think there are many things going on now that would be of great concern to Robert Hartmann. And of course, my exposure to him places me in the same kind of position. So it's a time when one could become very depressed and despairing. So working against that for myself, I have some approaches which I will use this coming year. I've been a scholar of neuro linguistics, which has to do with the connection between how we think and speak and what goes on in our brains, and then how that translates into our lives. I'm a believer in positive affirmation and positive energy, and I think positive energy, if we allow it to come into our lives and kind of call it forth, is a way to overcome the negative.

[01:00:53] Art Ellis: My effort for myself is to endeavor to take a look for ways to have a positive, positive approach to negate the negative thoughts and verbalizations are an important element. So I want to surround myself with uplifting influences, which I hope that I can then pass on to others in my interchanges and exchanges with them and be uplifting to them. I hope to be an instrument for the good. I'm mindful of Reinhold Niebuhr's council to accept things I cannot change, change things I can, and have the wisdom to know the difference and apply that to my life. Going back to formal axiology, I think it's very important for me, as it has been all these many years, to keep the intrinsic, extrinsic and systemic in proper balance and apply them to my life in a way that is enhancing to my life and to those around me. And have a sense of the relevant in the complex. I would like to leave you with some words from a Unitarian church group, which I have always really been fond of. Let love be the spirit of our fellowship. Let service be its law. Let us dwell together in peace. Seek the truth with understanding and help one another. Have a wonderful 2025.

[01:02:40] Suzie Price: Art is a living example of what it's like to put people before tasks, before ideas, to put spirit before body, before mind. We want all three aspects. It doesn't mean that mind doesn't matter and body doesn't matter. And in fact, mind and body come with us under the intrinsic or in under the spirit. They all come together, but we keep that hierarchy. And he has done a great job of that. He's brilliant and he's a deep thinker. And he would have a lot of the folks who studied with Hartmann would have a great opportunity to only be about thought and to impress others with their thought, but they don't. None of them do that. And that's because they had a role model in Robert Hartmann. Steve Byrum in one of the panels discussions. It's actually an episode that I mentioned that you can go listen to. Steve Byrum talked about how Hartmann was the kindest person he had ever met, and Robert Hartmann died in 1973. So he was their professor, and he taught them all this axiology and this acumen that we get to use today. So Steve Byrum has met a lot of people because he's been all over the world and so has art. And they both can't. They speak about him as though he's here today. And it's because here's what Hartmann did. He worked with them and thought of them as a person first, a student that they cared about over and above.

[01:04:09] Suzie Price: They've got certain things they have to do, and I got a lot of knowledge I need to share with you. So he's a a man. Art and Steve are both living beautiful, rich lives, and both of them have made my life richer by their presence. Now, I've had art on the podcast three different times. So episode 74 is we're talking about why Hartmann's work matters today, and he gives some great, simple examples, and we go into a good bit of detail about what Axiology is. Episode 114. We talk about unlocking the power of practical axiology and how we use it to make better decisions. So if I've piqued your interest at all, go listen to our discussion on that and then episode 115 again, is that panel discussion that we did at one of the conferences where I am the moderator and three people who knew Hartman and, you know, learned his axiology I don't know if it's his now. We all own it, I guess, because it's continuing to evolve, but learned actually directly through Hartman and are applying it all these years later. Go to priceless professional wake up eager 2025 to get the links to those episodes or to your favorite podcasts. So we're going to be wrapping it up quickly. We're going to go look at the body area. So we did mine.

[01:05:27] Suzie Price: And then I'm going to mention that your if you're looking or thinking about TriMetrix, it's your dimensional balance page graph. And you want to see how much color you have in the green bars for practical thinking and roll awareness. So worldview is practical thinking. How good am I at getting things done? And roll awareness is how aligned am I with my roles? So this relates to doing action, your daily focus. It relates to when you're working in the world. It's what am I going to focus on? What am I going to do today is my ability to get things done immediately, thoroughly, and cheerfully. And then for the selfie, how confident am I in my role? Do I have balance in my role? Am I able to get things done? It's all things that are physical where as the thinking is measuring things we can just think about, we can't actually touch it. These are touchable things that we can compare to each other. So it's knowing what is expected in role awareness. And you have different roles as an employee, a leader, a parent, a spouse. And so when I first took the assessment, as I alluded to, I wasn't seeing as much color on the self view in this area of role awareness. I was a new consultant. I was newly married. I was in a new life cycle. I had lots to learn.

[01:06:47] Suzie Price: And, you know, my greatest stress is if I don't know enough. My theoretical I always think I don't know enough and I don't think I'm doing enough. So over time, as I've focused on bringing up the doing parts of my life and how I feel about them, as I've retaken the assessment, they've gotten stronger and stronger and much more positive. And so because of the assessment, I knew what to focus on. And today I can feel the strength in that, in my resilience, in my sense of well-being, in having much better reviews of my year, doing the things that matter and doing them with more confidence by the greater color in the graph in those areas. So, um, so for step two on the celebration, you know, in the review process, I was strong here and more balanced. So I honor that. And I not only balancing my care for myself, but I'm balancing interaction with others. You know, remember there's a there's a squiggly line there. So I have had steady and strong self care. So. So when I think about body, I'm a health nut. And I have, you know, squiggly line haven't always stayed on it. But I keep coming back to it. And I've been more consistent over the past few years than ever around exercise. I'm a whole food plant based eater, and what I notice, it not only helps my body, but it helps my mind have clearer mind, better moods, it impacts everything.

[01:08:12] Suzie Price: And also, I'm so inspired. Ideas and answers come to me while I'm working out, so there's a good reason to continue to do that as well. It seems like I have access to that, so my plans for this year is big into the Peloton. I do these power zone rides. I just I'm completing this week my 900th ride on the bike, so my goal would be to do my 1,000th ride by the end of the year. My other goal is I've got a tread coming, which is a treadmill created by Peloton, so I'd like to do 50 runs in this year. So that would be doing, you know, a couple a week. And then last thing is I'm doing a blood panel where I'm measuring 100 plus health markers. I don't go to a doctor to do this. I did it two years ago. So I'm doing it again. It measures things like metabolic health, stress, nutrients, your different organs, your thyroid. So it's an organization called Function Health. And so you basically pay for it. And then they have all the information that will explain it. And you go somewhere to get the blood draw. So I want to figure out and make sure I'm doing the things that get my body truly needs to perform and feel my best, because I do consider myself as a worksite or workplace athlete.

[01:09:22] Suzie Price: And it's so great that we live in a time when we can do all of that. So if you're interested in it, I'll have a link to it in the show notes. I'm not getting anything from it. I'm not trying to promote it, but it is called function health. And so I may do an episode on that in the future. I like that I can do it independently, and I don't have to go to a doctor to do it, so it may do something on that. So those are my body focus areas and a little bit about how TriMetrix helps with that. This is a place the body area because of my high dominance motivator style. I think that that helps me because I have a sense of urgency around this. And so that's a benefit or a strength. And then I guess a momentum over time has kept me consistent. So let's hear from another guest. This is Mike Shennan. He is talking about authenticity. He is a sober coach. He works with The Naked Mind, which is a fabulous book. And he was on a podcast. He has an incredible background of working in corporate America and and not someone you would think would be a coach. But he is a beautiful coach. And listen now about his conversation or his thoughts for this year or what he's focusing on.

[01:10:38] Mike Shennan: Hey, Suzie. Mike Shennan here certified this Naked Mind coach. It was a pleasure to be on your podcast about a year ago in January of 2020 for my mind, body and spirit goals. Looking forward, looking ahead to 2025 are to continue on the path that I'm currently on, which is to explore ways that I can become more authentic in my own life. To identify areas where I'm giving away my power, where I can turn negative energy into positive energy. A lot of these things that you know, that I coach people around in, in my work, we don't realize where our control lies. And a lot of that is around, you know, the power and the energy that we take from people give to people and how we can reclaim that. And in doing so, that leads us on a path to what I consider what I call authenticity. And I think that's really, really important because in the world that we live in today, the world has become so much more advanced. It's very filtered, it's very complex. And so, you know, becoming more authentic in that world. First of all, it's kind of badass, which I kind of like. But secondarily, it's it's also, you know, it's it's really counterintuitive to the world that everybody else is living right now. And I think sometimes we, you know, that can be that can bring up some fear, that can bring some, you know, that can be scary. But I look into sort of Nature's Guide as sort of the, as my driver for a lot of this, you know, getting back to my, my core self and who I was before, a lot of the life's things sort of, you know, life's issues, including my personal journey around alcohol started to, you know, started to take over and asking those core questions around, you know, what drives me, what motivates me, what inspires me, and really kind of looking, listening to my body, listening to my mind and answering the questions that come up in those areas.

[01:12:07] Mike Shennan: And probably more important is to ignore any advice that goes against nature's guide. That was a quote from a book that I read recently around diet and exercise, and that's kind of my next step. One of my big my big body goals for the next year is to really start to focus on more natural energy sources, more natural ways of of living again, with that overall guide of authenticity, because I believe that that is, you know, the world that we live in is a fast and furious one. But, you know, for many, many humans are not designed to navigate it the way it is. And so authenticity is my sort of my word for the for the year. I was looking for the word of the year in January, and obviously to continue to to pass along and to share all of what I've discovered through my coaching and through just having conversations with amazing people like yourself. So I have an amazing 2025, Suzie. All the best.

[01:12:49] Suzie Price: I appreciate his focus on authenticity this year. I like that he has a word and I like that he talked about it being a badass trait. I like that. I really like that. It's good to be honest and open and be who you are, which is what we've been talking about. What interests you and and not trying to cover it up or shy away from it. And he's had a journey with his own journey with alcohol. And he's a great coach to help people consider this. We had him on episode 104 last year, this time for a dry January for the sober curious. And so I want you to check that out. It's episode number 104. You'll enjoy that episode. Here is our last sharing. It's from Douglas, who you've already heard from today with our wellbeing segment. And let's hear what he's focused on this year.

[01:13:43] Douglas White: Okay, here's my shears for mind body, soul, mind body spirit focuses of 2025 2024 was a huge year for me to work on my own ability to love myself, to be good to myself, to nurture myself, so on and so forth. All the ways you could consider self-care, let's say. And so I want to continue with that theme and evolve it. So the theme now is I want to be in service to myself. Meaning what is it that I want to be doing? How do I want to be doing it? Who do I want to be doing it with? When do I want to be doing it? So on and so forth. And it's more specific to my career, Here to being an emotional awareness coach and building my business as a personal coach, but also with Soul Integrated athletics. And so I want to really lock into focusing on myself. And what do I want to create? What do I what feels best for me to share and how do I want to say it, and who do I want to say it to? And so on and so forth. So that's a huge focus for me in 2025. And the other two things are love. I want to expand my concept of love, my knowledge base of love, and what that means to me, more specifically in a romantic, intimate relationship. And then exploration. Like, I want to be an explorer no matter if I'm in my neighborhood that I've been in for years or if I'm overseas traveling, I just want to have that exploration spirit of curiosity and, you know, enticement and so on and so forth to keep my heart in that place of like, continue to explore and see what all the amazement of life you know, so I can keep seeing the amazement of life. And that's what I got for 2025. Love you guys. Hope everything is going well for you.

[01:15:42] Suzie Price: By Douglas is a great lead into the spirit area because he's he's thinking about things, about how he feels about himself and what he's talking a little bit about direction. This is the spirit area in the TriMetrix. When you're talking about the acumen and the axiology that Hartman discovered, you would look at your graph and see how much color you have in the understanding others on the worldview and your sense of self. So how clearly do I understand and relate to others my ability to be with others, listen to them, understand things that are not said, valuing others. This is the I before the E before the S was what art talked about. Putting People above task. So this is the valuing of others and the valuing of our self. So appreciation, love, seeing ourself and others clearly that they have value. It's an infinite. We have infinite characteristics in how we feel and love and care for ourself. And so what I have found here is that because this is so broad and it's so rich that when we connect on this basis, we leave more impact than if all we did was talk about what we were doing. You know what? Here's my job title. And here's my idea that I want you to know. What if I connected with you for who you are as a person? We're much more memorable, and we have much more meaning when we do that.

[01:17:15] Suzie Price: And it's interesting that within the spirit area or the intrinsic area within that are the other focus areas. So how we think and what we're doing are wrapped up in this infinite focus of love and appreciation and valuing others and prioritizing that when we think about the hierarchy. So how are we being with others? How are we being with ourselves? Are we putting them before us, having to share our ideas or telling people what we're doing? And so for me this year, it's also been about keeping a balance between self-care. So doing a good bit of self-care with my fitness stuff and just quiet time and family. So that has been very important. And then I find that I'm doing better and keeping that balance. So the spirit piece, that's a glory for me. And then the what I'm going to do different, I'm going to keep paying attention to what Douglas is reminding us of, which is how I feel, and make sure that I'm making decisions based on what I say matters and not get caught up in, hey, I've got this background and people want me to do things, so I want to really embrace that. So in my review area, I do tend to say say yes to good things, but sometimes they're off purpose.

[01:18:41] Suzie Price: And that's that sense of urgency that I talked about earlier. So and things that I'm going to continue to do that help me remember to tune in to myself and slow down my pace and have less urgency and intensity. Is quiet time. Not packing so many things into my schedule. Being very organized helps me. You know, I said, the spirit, you know, the doing is within it. And so like the tools that I have with the getting things done and remembering my purpose, that idea of essentialism, you know, what's my thing? All of that's going to help me remove some of the urgency and intensity that I had last year. So I think I'm going to continue to to do all of that. And I think that'll help my accountability. So as we close today, I want to share one additional idea and a reminder. We've talked about it before on different episodes and on our website. But the exponential growth principle and the idea around that is small efforts add up 1% a day. In 70 days you're twice improved and 1% equals 15 minutes. So doing a little bit every day adds up. It's a phenomenon where quantity increases at a consistent percentage rate over equal time intervals, leading to growth that becomes progressively faster as the quantity accumulates. How's that for a definition? It occurs. It occurs because the growth is proportional to the current size, meaning the larger the quantity, the greater incremental increase over time.

[01:20:15] Suzie Price: So in finance you think about compound interest in biology, biologists would tell us that populations can grow exponentially when resources are abundant, and it's a powerful metaphor for personal and professional development, highlighting how small and consistent efforts add up. So that's that's I've seen that in my life. James Clear's book The Automatic Habits is a very popular book that people have benefited from, and this is just a reminder of that, like learning a skill. If you practice just 1% every day to get better at it, you're going to be 37 times better at the end of the year. So invest those small and consistent efforts in relationships in the things that you care about. It doesn't have to be this big, huge leap. Don't make these big, hairy goals unless you feel interested and excited about that. I don't find that they always work. Pick 3 to 5 things that you're going to continue to do, and things that you're going to do differently, and focus on those. Start small. Do daily actions. Be Actions. Be consistent and you're going to have change, and you'll get where you want to go and you'll be up next year will be here before we know it, and you'll start the process again. You're going to review.

[01:21:26] Suzie Price: You're going to glory and you're going to do self-diagnosis. And I hope that some of the tools that we've shared today, and some of the things that people have shared today, have inspired you and energized you, and you have some resources to take away with you today. I want to thank all the guests who took time to share their thoughts. The show notes again and the links to everything we were talking about. It is pricelessprofessional.com/wakeupeager. If you see us on LinkedIn or on Facebook, please like, share, comment, subscribe to us anywhere you get your podcasts. Our next few episodes are going to be good. They're going to be on workplace motivators. I've got some guests sharing and come join us. Look for those that'll be coming out soon. Since I'm going to be more regular with this podcast and I'm excited about that. So thank you for tuning in, and I'd like to share what Art shared the Unitarian blessing. Let love be the spirit of our fellowship. Let service be its law. Let us dwell together in peace. Seek the truth with understanding and help one another. Sounds like a great way to live. Go forth and prosper. Go create your wake up eager life by thinking about what you want to do every day, and we'll see you on the next episode. Take care.

[01:22:49] Intro/Outro: This episode of the Wake Up Eager Workforce podcast was brought to you by Priceless Professional Development. Thank you for tuning in. If you enjoyed today's show, head over to pricelessprofessional.com to gain access to more professional development resources.