You're listening to the Time to Level Up Podcast. I'm your host, business life coach, Andrea Liebross. I help women in business commit to their own growth personally and professionally. Each week, I'll bring you strategies to help you think clearly, gain confidence, make your time productive, turn every obstacle into an opportunity, and finally overcome the overwhelm so that you can make money and manage life. Let's create a plan so you have a profitable business, successful career, and best of all, live with unapologetic ambition. Are you ready to drop the drama and figure out the how in order to reach your goals? You're in the right place. It's Time to Level Up. Let's do this.
Hello, my friends and welcome back to the podcast. How are you doing during this “busy” holiday season? I'm putting busy in air quotes, because really, busy is just a thought we have. It’s not a fact. Well, I am recording this and I'm recording it actually pretty early. I'm recording it in October. Here's why, it actually has to do with today's topic. My podcast producer takes the entire month of December off. I am recording all December's podcasts way ahead of time.
She does that because she wants to be present. She wants to be available. She wants to be part of what's going on, on the personal side of her life during the month of December. I actually don't mind at all recording these because it's going to allow me to be more present with my family and personal life in the month of December. Because I'm just going to be really honest, creating these podcasts every week, it's a lot of work. Today's topic is really about being present.
I went to the Googles and I did lots of research on what does being present mean. I really have come up I think with a better way of thinking about being present. Here are some things I tossed around about being present. When we're present, sometimes we think “Oh my gosh, this is too good to be true” in some instances. But here's the thing, nothing is really too good to be true.
I also thought about when maybe we're not really loving being in the present, we don't like where we're at, that's another angle, and trying to reframe it and telling myself love where you're at. So I spent a lot of time really practicing and working on nothing's too good to be true, love where you're at, be present. But then I went to one of my favorite coaches, Brooke Castillo, and she presented the be-present idea as my thought now is it doesn't get better than this. It doesn't get better than this current moment.
I think I'm going to do a little deep dive on that one because I think that's so powerful. We're so focused on the past and we're so focused on the future. We get to create our future first of all, and we’re not there yet so it doesn't get any better than this current moment. Now, let me backtrack a little bit. I hear my clients say all the time, “Andrea, the whole reason I'm here coaching with you is that I don't love my present moment. I want to create a future that I do love.” In fact that sometimes part of my tagline of coaching, create a life and a business you love, not another to-do list.
But here's the thing. If I go then to, “Alright, well right now you have to love where you're at in order to create a future that you love,” sometimes then I hear clients say, “Yeah, but my moment right now, my present actually sucks. What if I don't want to be in my present moment? What if I want to just get out of my present moment and you're telling me to be in my present moment, but I just really want to take action and get out of my present moment? I can't love where I'm at.” That's a very good point.
But if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably someone who is action-oriented. No wonder you just want to take action and get moving. I mean, I've always been action-oriented myself, and I've always felt that I'm a pretty powerful person, I can control my own life, and I can get myself into better moments. Sometimes that's true, but I want to take this to another level, especially right now as we plan for the future, we plan for 2023.
Listen to this thought that I came across as I was going to the Googles. Listen to this thought: being aware of the present moment simply means you never believe the illusion that the future is going to be better than what is going on right now. I'm going to say that again. Listen, so you can really hear me. Being aware of the present moment simply means you never believe the illusion that the future is going to be better than what's going on right now.
I think this statement actually takes things to a deeper level, deeper than even the present, and it hints at, it intimates that not only are we aware of our present moment, but we are also aware that it doesn't get better than this. No moment is better than another moment. Listen to that one. No moment is better than another moment. If you're going, “What?” just stay with me, let's think about a few moments that we perceive as not good.
When you're at the doctor, when your child is screaming, when you get a dreaded phone call, those are really not good moments, or in your business when you realize you haven't hit your goal, or this is really hard, or you don't know what to do next, or you have to have a hard conversation, you might have to fire someone, you need to tell someone that they're not living up to what they're supposed to live up to, or what you're asking them to do.
Or even have that conversation with yourself. Like what's wrong with you? Why can't I get my act together? Those are moments that aren't so great. We could employ some tactics to deal with that particular moment. We could breathe into the moment. We could do tapping, we could do all sorts of things, which again, I'm all in for. But I think if we think about not believing the illusion that the future is going to be better than what's going on right now, we actually have even more power. Being present, I've heard for years and I've always thought, “Yeah, nice concept.”
I do yoga, for example, twice a week. I go to YogaSix, so shout out to YogaSix if you've ever been there. In yoga, they're always saying, “Let your mind be here now. What is your intention?” I'm going to be honest, a lot of times when I get into yoga, I've flown in. I don't give myself tons of time to get into the zone. My mind is actually being entertained by thinking about what's going on in my business, thinking about my kids or my husband, or what we're doing on the weekend, or we're going to a football game, concert, or out to dinner.
My mind becomes entertained by those things. It seems to be more enjoyable thinking about those things than to think about the present moment when I am standing there in yoga in a pose and my legs are burning. My husband sometimes will say to me, “Are you all relaxed now that you went to yoga?” No, actually. I am not all relaxed. I do think I probably am more relaxed than when I got there. I do think I am stronger. But I am not necessarily like zen.
If you're anything like me and yoga and you might be doing some hot yoga, some power yoga, or some challenging yoga, you'll understand that your mind often wanders as a way to avoid the hurt or the pain, that being in the present moment thinking is somewhat airy, is somewhat rainbows and unicorns, it's somewhat challenging to really, really do.
Let's go back to the statement of being aware of the present moment simply means you never believe the illusion that the future is going to be better than what's going on right now. You could say, to sum that statement up, it doesn't get any better than this. It doesn't get any better than that moment in yoga. It doesn't get any better than being at the doctor's office. It doesn't get any better than thinking about why you haven't reached your goals.
What does that really mean? Let's go deeper. It means, if it's not going to be better than this, if this moment is the best it's ever going to be, and the next moment is the best it's ever going to be, what does that mean to me in my life? One of the things that I know that is true, I've really had to reconcile this, the if it doesn't get any better than this present moment, one of the things that I know that is true for all the work that I've done is that our capacity for happiness has nothing to do with anything going on externally or in the future. It has everything to do with our present thoughts. Joy and happiness come from what's going on in our minds.
If that's all true, all thoughts are available to me in this moment and that's true, then there is no future moment, or I will have the ability to have more capacity for joy or happiness than I have right now. My capacity for joy or happiness is at full capacity from the minute I was born. I did a podcast unworthiness and I remember saying in that podcast, and I really believe this, that you are fully worthy from the moment you're born. The only thing that holds me back from experiencing joy in my brain and from thinking thoughts that create joy are the thoughts that block my joy.
Stay with me on this. If I think that all my capacity for joy is here now, and no matter what changes in the external world, the only thing that will ultimately change joy is how I feel, and how I feel is how I think. The only thing that's going to change joy and how I feel is how I think. If I think more about success, for example, and I think about maybe my business being even more successful than it is now and I think that when I get to that next level of success, I will be happier, I have to remind myself that, “Wait, no, that won't make me happier.”
I think that's why sometimes we have a hard time celebrating. We think that when we get there, we're going to have a big celebration, but we don't, we just move on to the next thing. If I go back to my own teachings, my own learning, my own beliefs, that I believe that what makes me happy is my thinking, whatever thought I'm going to have when I'm more successful is actually a thought that I could have right now. The thought I'm going to have when I'm more successful is actually a thought I could have right now.
When I think that, my mind explodes. I thought this moment right now is as good as it will ever get in terms of my ability to think thoughts that create the feelings I want. Because really what we want in life is a feeling. All we really want in life is a feeling. The only thing that will change my future, potentially, is the external world. The only thing that might change my future is some circumstance in my life. The only thing that really ultimately is going to bring me happiness, though, which is what we're really on a quest for, is the thought I have in that future moment or the thought I have about that future circumstance or external thing.
If I move into my big brand new house, eventually, and I think I'm going to be happier there, really the only way I'm going to be happier there is based on my thoughts. But I could be just as happy right now in my present house. I can generate those same thoughts right now. Being present is really about feeling how you want to feel in the moment. I want you to remember that this month as we go through the hustle and bustle of the holidays. I want you to remember when grandma does something annoying, remember this is as good as it gets. There's no better moment than right now.
You may have heard about the author and philosopher Eckhart Tolle, which I've read a lot on, and he says that being in the present moment to him doesn't mean that he doesn't think about the future. I want you to back up. I'm not saying here that it's not worth thinking about the future. It's totally worth thinking about the future. I think you need to go to your future you sometimes for guidance. I'm big on that concept. But Eckhart Tolle would agree that it doesn't mean that we don't think about the future. He totally thinks about the future in the present moment.
But what he doesn't do, and this is the one thing that I’ve wrapped my mind around lately, is that he doesn't believe that by planning for the future moment, that future moment will be better than this one. Planning for that future moment, the betterness in that is just the journey you're going to go on to get there. I have an episode about working towards your passion, and I really just think it's about passionating. It's the journey that you go on to find the things you love. Even though Eckhart Tolle is creating, and even though he's writing books and planning for his future, in his mind, he's not saying, “Oh, I'm going to trade this moment for some better future moment.”
We often trade our happiness in this moment for some future moment that we believe will be better or even some past moment that we thought was better. Even though he's creating and even though he's writing books and planning for his future, in his mind, he is not saying, “Oh, I'm going to trade this moment for some future moment.” We're often trading our happiness in this moment. Think about this, business owners, part of my process in Runway to Freedom Business Mastermind is I encourage you to plug in first of all.
What does plugin even mean? Plug in means being happy in this present moment, being where you want to be in the present moment. Plug in, prioritize, plan, produce, process, and proceed. That's my framework for Runway to Freedom Business Mastermind. You can be happy in all of those steps. You can be happy in the prioritizing process. You can feel joy as you plan. You can feel excited when you're actually taking action. It's available to you. All of that's available to you. You don't have to wait until you've created that masterpiece to feel happiness. We're often trading our happiness in this moment for some future moment we think is going to be better or even some past moment we thought was better.
Really our capacity though for this joy or happiness is always the same in both of those moments. For me, just because I'm planning or I'm writing a book, and I am definitely planning on helping more women, I'm planning on making more money, I'm planning on meeting new people, I'm planning to live in a different house, and I'm planning to have no kids in that house, that's all fantastic. But I don't sacrifice now by telling myself, “Oh, that's when I'll be happier by denying my happiness right now.” Are you guys following this? Because it really blows my mind, even when I'm talking about it to you right now as I'm rereading what I wrote for the podcast.
This is something now that sometimes. I think, “Oh, when I have that, then it'll be better. When I don't have so many things on my plate, when I've completed that project, then I'll be able to breathe easier. After the holidays, oh, I'll be way better. I'll be more at peace. Or when my kids are back home, then I'll be able to do something differently than I'm doing now.” I'm sure you guys do the same thing.
What if that's all just a story you're telling yourselves? What if really we could have whatever we think we'll be better when you complete the project, when the holidays are over, or when you reach a certain revenue goal in your business, what does that tell a story? What if we can really have whatever we think will be better in the future right now?
The reason I think we think that things will be better is because then you won't be working on the project anymore or you won't be in the mess of the holidays. But by believing that, then I am resisting working on the project right now. I am resisting enjoying the mess of the holidays. It's almost like I'm not enjoying the process or the present moment. I really, really get that now. I really understand that by believing a future moment will be better than this moment. I am deluding myself and missing out on this moment. Believing that this moment is horrible and that some future moment will be fantastic as soon as this horrible moment is over, I am missing the experience of being fully present and alive without judging this moment.
That has made my life incredibly more dynamic by understanding that. Now knowing when my brain wants to go to some future moment and entice me to deny this moment, for the sake of the one that I'm going to have in the future, I say to myself, “I'm onto you, I'm onto you.” That's a great example of eavesdropping in on your own thoughts, which I really highly encourage when we do thought downloads. If you have not gone to download the Clear Thinking Challenge, which I will put a link to in the show notes, you can actually access it at andrealiebross.com/links, you really should. Because that really helps you eavesdrop on what is really going on in your mind. That was all tangential.
In order for me to even have a future moment that is as amazing as the one I have right now is that I have to learn how to appreciate this current amazing moment. Otherwise, when I get to that future moment, I for sure will be denying that moment for some sake of some other future moments. I thought about this weekend, I was up driving on 146th Street. If you live in Indianapolis, you know what I'm talking about. I thought about this thing when I was driving past the apartments that are on the northeast corner of the intersection of the 146th Street in Springmill Road.
Here's a story. When my husband and I moved to Indianapolis in 2000, we knew no one. The only person we knew was the guy that recruited my husband to come here and join his practice. When we arrived in July of 2000, we didn't know anyone except Stan and his wife, Martha, but we didn't know where we would both be working. We have jobs, both of us, so we decided to rent an apartment that was halfway between both of our jobs geographically. We each would have a 20-minute drive to work. We lived in this apartment complex at the corner of 146th in Springmill. At that time, it was called Amalie on Springmill and we lived on Strauss Drive.
The apartment we rented was brand new, and it had a paved outside patio area with a sliding glass door. That paved area looked out onto a field. Coming from our previous apartments in Houston and Manhattan, this seemed luxurious. We also had three bedrooms and we used one bedroom for guest room, one for study, and one is the master. That seemed luxurious. We got a dog because we could have dogs in this apartment. That seemed luxurious. We got a Bernese Mountain dog named Jasmine. We were really living large.
We had made it to Indianapolis. We had made it through residency, I had my master's, we had a dog, we were great. Then the next item on the list was to have a child. Soon after we moved here, like two months later, three months later, I got pregnant, right on schedule. But as the month went on in the pregnancy, I started to think that there was no way that I could have a baby in this apartment, which really was delusional. We went on this quest in the spring to buy our first home, which is still the home we live in today, but not for long.
But let's fast forward 22 years. This weekend I drove by that apartment complex I actually drive by often. Now 146th Street is like a mini highway. It's a major street. When we lived on it, it was just a two-lane road with the yellow line in the middle, with stop signs. Now there are roundabouts and traffic lights. There are houses surrounding that Amalie on Springmill complex. It now doesn't look so brand new. It's definitely not the most attractive apartment in Carmel, Indiana. But when we drive by there, when I drove by there this weekend, I always think to myself, “Ah, the way life used to be, it was so simple back then. It was so easy. That apartment was so manageable. Why did we think that owning a house would be better?”
Well, first we thought the future moment inside that apartment was going to be amazing. But then we quickly thought the future moment inside the house was going to be amazing. It's so interesting that right now when I drive by, and I think, “Oh my gosh, the way life used to be, it was so simple,” it's ironic because during those 10 months that we lived there, 11 months that we lived there, we didn't see it that way for the last half of that. We saw the time, during those last few months in the apartment, and the baby growing inside me and a puppy, as a time that we were hoping and creating some better moment inside the house, then we got the better moment in our current house.
When we look back on the Amalie on Springville on Strauss Drive, it is only now that I can see how great those moments really were. We didn't have all the stress of being a homeowner. But we weren't really conscious in the present moments of those last few months living in the apartment. We weren't aware of how great that was then, so we sort of missed out on the joy of living and Amalie on Springmill for those last few months. You guys heard people talk about this thing all the time. It’s like, “Remember when we could only afford to buy that clunky old car? All those were the good old days. That was when it was really sweet. We didn't have to worry about other things.”
I think we can all relate to that time in our lives when we look at our past and we think, “Oh, if we could only have appreciated that body we had when we were 18. If we could only have appreciated when we were kids and we didn't really have to worry or take care of ourselves.” In those moments, we didn't have the ability to appreciate that. I wonder now if I get to some future moment, I'm going to look back and say, “Oh my gosh, Andrea, that October of 2022 was amazing. But you missed out because you were so busy thinking about the future.” Or when I have more clients, when I live in my new house, when I have more money, or when I have less fat on my body.
We always want to get to the part where we're skinny and rich. If that's the place, then we miss out on the part where we're not loving how we look right now or we're not loving what we're creating right now. I tell my clients and I tell myself that you won't ever get to a moment where you're fully loving of your body or your business until you get to the moment where you're fully loving of your body and your business right now.
Loving life doesn't happen because your body changes or because you have more money. It happens because you make a decision. We think we accept our body thinner because it's better or we think we accept our business better because we're helping more people or making more money. But really all we've done is change our opinion of it. That is why we feel so much better.
Now we can do that changing right now. In fact, if we do it when it isn't based on external circumstances, we will always find a way of managing ourselves in the present moment where it doesn't matter what is happening externally. It doesn't matter if we've gained a lot or lost weight. It doesn't matter if we're making more money or living in a different house, we can still own our own joy right now because our capacity for joy does not increase the thinner I get. The capacity for joy is the exact same, right in this minute, as it is when I have lost 10 pounds, when I made a million dollars, or when I've helped a thousand more people. It's not better. It's just different.
Think about revenue goals in your business. You think things will be so much better when you make more money. It won't be better. It won't be more joyful. It won't be easier. It will just be different. Not better, just different. When you look to be happier, when you look to have more joy, know that the reason why you believe you'll be happier is because you were thinner or more profitable, but that's not true. The reason you'll be happier is because you're going to give yourself permission to be happier.
But you could give yourself permission right now. That's just a mind blower, isn't it? You think you're going to be happier then because you'll give yourself permission then. It's like you think you'll have more time to focus on you after the holidays, but really, it's just because you'll give yourself permission to focus on you after the holidays. When I started this business, I remember getting to the point where I started to believe that I could be happier in my business right now no matter where I was in it. When I started to believe that versus I would be happier when I got to some goal, it was at that moment when I believed I can be happy right now that I became more profitable.
I remember when I accepted that thought that I can be happy right now without more profit, it was not until I got to that moment that I actually started to create a profit. I'm really very future focused and I help my clients plan and create their future. They’d often say to me, “How do you reconcile that with being in the present moment?” I say the way that I answer that is that I'm in the present moment while I'm planning for my future. I don't trade this moment or believe that this moment is less valuable based on my future goals.
Plan, dream, and organize all you want, I'll be with you right beside you, but just don't start believing that what you've planned for the future is going to be any better than your current moment. You are going to be in the present moment your entire life. If you are focusing on how good the future is going to be, you are just running on the hamster wheel hoping to get somewhere. Life is right now in this glorious moment right in front of you.
I think that's why I love doing VIP day so much. Because in the moment when we're planning for that future, I love that particular moment, the energy in that moment. Yes, we're planning for the future, but we're loving the moment in which we're doing it. I believe that if you're not allowing yourself to be happy right now, nothing external in the future is going to change that permanently. Let that sink in and blow your mind. Will it change you? I'm all about creating a life that you want and changing anything you want in your life. But know that you can do that from a place of acceptance and happiness right now if you give yourself permission.
You don't have to be unhappy right now, you don't have to be frustrated. In fact, making changes from a place of abundance or happiness and joy in this moment will make that change so much easier. Go listen to the podcast on deciding from abundance. You'll see what I mean. Here's the thing, all of us want instant results. The truth is, you always have results available to you if you're willing to be in this moment and understand that your capacity for joy and happiness is 100%.
The only difference is that you're waiting for some external thing to change in order to give yourself permission to be happy in this moment. It's always about when I get to someplace, when my children are perfect, when I meet the perfect man, when I make a million dollars, when I have all of this stuff, we think that when that happens, we'll really be happy. But I think the work I want to encourage you to continue to do on yourself, the work that I continue to do on myself is that the stuff is the easy part.
The stuff is actually just stuff. You can get all of the things, the feelings you think you'll have from that stuff right now. You can create anything you want in your life and I think you'd have to come to understand that on some level. You can get it all but you don't need it to be happy. In fact if you're looking at something in your life externally, and you don't think it's great, and you don't think you're successful enough, you don't think your relationship is good enough, or your kids are in the right place, you don't think your bank account is big enough, whatever it is, just know that those things do not have the ability to rob you of your happiness.
You don't even have to improve on those things to feel better. It doesn't mean you have to improve on those things if you want to, keep going on improving anything you want, but just don't tell yourself that you'll somehow be happier in getting those things. The happiness is available to you right here and now. You can find peace and joy in the moment regardless of what's in your bank account.
I just noticed myself this morning saying, “Oh, I can't wait to next week when I get to see my own coach and go on my own retreat. I can't wait until my kids come home for fall break.” Do you guys do that? I can't wait for this. I can't wait for that. It's going to be so awesome. Those times are not any more awesome than this moment right now. I could find awesomeness right now. But I feel myself sometimes resisting that thought. I feel myself resisting that I’ll be better than this moment. I ask myself, “Why am I believing that?” Because I know conceptually that I can be in the space of joy right now if I allow myself to be in it.
This was happening literally last week, and I did my own thought download inside my Full Focus Planner. At that moment, as I was writing these things down, I felt the difference in my thinking because I was onto myself. I was eavesdropping in on myself. I tasted the ability right then, as I was writing that stuff down, to be fully joyous now, not then and not because of anything outside of me. That's a big difference. I didn't have to think about being grateful for anything. I didn't have to look at my life and see what I have. I didn't have to do any of that to know I can be happy right now.
This morning, I got a picture from my client standing on a big empty lot. She said, “It happened.” This client has been working towards buying this lot and building her dream home in Southern California for probably years. She and I have been talking about it for a year, and we thought it wasn't going to happen, and then we did, and then it wasn't, and finally it did. She wrote in the text, she realized that she can be happy regardless of whether or not that lot was actually coming to fruition. When she realized that, that was just when she became the lot owner.
Maybe today you don't master this and it's going to take you a while but I just want you to know this as possible. Knowing that we can really do that, that our happiness doesn't have to be wrapped up in a house, a lot, a Mercedes, a husband, or a successful business, our happiness can just be wrapped up in our mind right now, that's amazing. That's what's going to get you the house, the lot, maybe that husband, the profit.
Inside Committed to Growth, this is a concept that we continue to work on from a life-coaching perspective, because just like the name of the program, Committed to Growth, we are committed there to get into a place where we truly embrace this concept consistently. So I hope that you see this concept as a possibility for you too. Come inside and join us there if you want to talk about it more. Let's talk about this. What do you guys think about this idea? Can you taste it? Can you be in the moment? Can you notice when you're trying to escape this moment for some future moment?
What if you just commit to growing and commit to being in the present moment? It's hard. That's why we have support. But you can tell the difference. I'm going to tell you that you will be able to tell the difference in yourself if you are fully content in the moment versus not. Planning for the future moment is actually way more fun if you're present in this moment. You have an amazing future ahead of you, but knowing that it doesn't have to be any more amazing than right now, that is amazing in and of itself.
Everything that's amazing is available to us right now here at the moment. So please come to Instagram and let me know what you think in a direct message. Please think of one person who needs to hear this message who can help you create amazingness in the future but can also help you recognize and give you permission to be happy right now. Who's that one person? Share this episode with them so you can do this together.
I would love to do this with you. If you are interested in that, if you're ready to do that, if you're ready to uplevel your life and give yourself permission to do that, come join us inside Committed to Growth. You can go to www.andreaslinks.com to find the link to my website, to schedule a call, to the Clear Thinking Challenge, all of it. I want to hear what you're thinking. I want to talk about this. I want to get your ideas about it. So please connect, let's open up a conversation. I would love to. Until then, I want you guys to really consider this idea that it doesn't get better than this. That is not horrible news. This is a step in leveling up your game. I will see you all next week.
Thanks for listening to the Time to Level Up Podcast with me, your host, Andrea Liebross. If you know someone who could benefit from listening to this episode, I encourage you to take a screenshot and share it with them. Okay. Now, what about you? You've listened to the podcast, and if you now know that you're ready to upgrade your life, upgrade your business, upgrade you, then stop being only a listener and start being a liver living that upgraded life. Head over to my website and schedule a call. Right there on that call, we'll start changing the way you think and act so that you can have the freedom to achieve the impossible in life and business, and have the resources to do it. You deserve an upgrade. Let's do it.