Emiliya Zhivotovskaya

We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. At the age of five, Amelia Javatovskaya and her family fled from Kiev, escaping the fall of communism

and the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl. She found herself in a new land, faced with challenges completely foreign to the average kid growing up in a New York suburb. Then nine years later, she faced another tragedy, the sudden loss of her brother as he ran to save his fiance from drowning and lost his life in the process of saving hers, and again years later the loss of her mother.

From this place of deep challenge, she could have given up, blamed the world, and walked away from joy, from happiness and possibility. Instead, she discovered within herself a well spring of resilience and a relentless desire to understand where this came from and how to bring a similar lens to others. She was determined to help others flourish. Her exploration quickly developed into a lifelong quest, leading her to study psychology at Long Island University, followed by a master's degree and

applied positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. She's gone on to create her own company, The Flourishing Center. Amelia is currently pursuing her PhD and Mind Body Medicine at Saybrook University. Here's the interview. Thanks for taking a couple of minutes and sitting down with me. So our podcast is called The One You Feed and it's based on the old parable of Two Wolves, where there's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson and he says, in life,

there are two wolves inside of us. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second, and he asked his grandfather which one wins, and the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that podcast means to you in

your life and in the work that you do. Honestly, I have to say that my first instinct is it like chook me up a little like and maybe want to cry um and I guess it'll come out as to why. I'm not really quite sure why um and And honestly, I see them both as essential parts of the human condition. So when we say which one do you feed? I, of course, my my my rational brain goes no, of course we should feed the good wolf, because you know, that's what we've been raised to do,

is feed the good wolf. But then my empathy goes out to the other wolf, the hatred, degreed, the fear. That's a part of the human condition, and um, we can't leave that part of us starving because it's gonna then it doesn't go away, doesn't die, It'll just be starving. And the work that I do is about helping people integrate the different parts of themselves. And I'm wondering if there's if there's a way to feed the good wolf

and feed the other wolf. Um. And and it's not that either needs to win, it's that they have to learn how to work together. UM. A lot of the work I do in coaching is helping people take their fears and rather than thinking that they have to check their fears at the door, work with them. UM. Some really interesting signs coming out in research around courage and courageous people. And so often people think that courage means

that you just you're fearless, you move without fear. And what we know time and time again is that people who embody courageousness don't note they It's not that they don't feel fear, it's that they their willingness to act is stronger than their fear. So what they've done is that they've taken that wolf. And some people could say

they decided that they weren't going to feed it. I would say that they gave it the protein and good food that it needs and put it on a leash and said, let's walk alongside me, and I want you to be on the lookout for what might go wrong. And i want you to whisper in my ear because I'm going to listen to you, but not always take

your advice. You don't need to shout at me. And that the real transformation I've seen that people make is not when they completely ignore the other wolf or starve it, but when we find a way to say, there's abundance

and there's enough to go around. And so often when you are able to honor that emotional that the darker side, the scared side, the guilty side, the shame side, with just compassion, with just love and saying I hear you, and it's okay, We're okay, because that other wolf, it's just trying to protect and it's doing something that has been planted within us evolutionarily thousands and thousands of years ago.

And if we ignore that part of ourselves in some ways, it just ends up being starving and like that grumble in your stomach that you get on empty, and we try to put that part of ourselves in the dungeon, and after a while, it actually it gets it gets angrier, It gets hungrier, and it it acts out even more

simply because it's hungry. But it doesn't need you don't need to give it all of your attention, because at the end of the day, when we're really integrated, we're just one wolf, and and we can really show up as the highest expression of ourselves and then really carried a stronger platform for that good wolf, for that loving wolf, for the one that is is dedicated to service and acts with gratitude and with humility and doesn't just shun

a part of themselves out, but really brings it all forward. You know. I actually had somebody say, well, I don't really believe there's two wolves inside us. I was like, well, I know there's not two wolves inside me, right, it's a story that but but what I really like there, and I'd like to maybe spend another couple of minutes on it is you do hear that integrate? You have to integrate your your dark side, right, you have to do those things. And and we could start, you know,

trying to twist the parable. Does the bad wolves start to become nicer? Does it? But but we you know, it's a story, so how do we bring those parts of ourselves that are there that probably have some information to tell us about who we are and what's important to us. How do we work with those in a constructive way. Great question. It might even be helpful for me to talk a little bit about what positive psychology is and what it's not in the context of what

we're talking about. When positive psychology first came about, people said, oh, this must be a scientific study of happiness, so you must be trying to make everybody happy and or focus just on positive emotions, and you were trying to get rid of negative emotions. And we would say, of course not. Of course we can't get rid of negative emotions. Why

would you want to. In fact, they actually did a study where they ask people if we hypothetically could give you a pill that you could take, and if you took this pill, you would never have to feel any negative emotion. You wouldn't feel sadness or grief or anger or despair, and you would just be able to feel the positive emotions content, happy, joyful, grateful, connected. Would you take the pill? And almost everybody always says, of course not.

And I think the reason that they do is because inherently they under stand that it's it's not human to not feel all those negative emotions, because some people would say it's the contrast, it's knowing the dark or knowing the downsides helps you feel that actually really appreciate the positive um Some people would say, I want my my fear with me when I'm walking down a dark alley. I need to have my spidy senses up to be

able to see what might go wrong. And from a positive psychology perspective, we want to understand what good or what value do these emotions serve and use them for what they're here to give us, and check that which we don't need at the door. Because any one emotion, it's not that positive emotions are good and negative emotions are bad. It's that they serve different functions and call this thought action tendencies. So negative emotions have a very

specific thought action tendency. When you're scared, you want to run. When you're angry, you want to fight back. When you're disgusted, you want to repel. When you're embarrassed, you want to hide, And those are really important evolutionarily programmed emotions, and anyone emotions not bad. It's when we get stuck in them and most people just don't have the tools as to how to work with those emotions, and so we get

stuck in them. Like expressing anger and experiencing anger are two very different things, and most people hide from it because they think that expressing their anger is the way to experience it. But actually learning how to experience your emotions, breathe with them, feel with them, move them, I have found is a lot more helpful than than what most people try to do, which is they try to shun it.

So just because you stuff an emotion doesn't mean it goes away, and more personal mastery comes from actually working with those emotions, moving through them so that there's also more space for the positive emotions, and then we actually actively have to put in things like love and contentment and gratitude. For the record, if you find that pill, I'm on the fence, so you just let me know if it exists. And as a former addict, I spent

a lot of my time chasing that exact thing. Um So this I like that, and I like the evolutionary talk. I've done a couple of many episodes recently where it's just sort of me talking, and most like that's probably when most listeners turn it off. But um, but I've been talking about I was talking about negativity, Like, why

is it that we're prone to see the negative? You know, it's sort of evolutionarily, it's we have to be alert for threats, right, but we're not so our world is different today, and and that that knowing that that's what we're going to default to in a lot of cases. If we know that, we can sort of say, all right, let me try and reframe the situation. What you know, instead of seeing a bunk house that's cold and with a thin mattress, you can see one that's surrounded with people.

I mean, it's it's all a framing exercise and that point. So, um, now let's talk a little bit about I want to explore the idea of positive psychology and depression because that's a theme that comes up on the show. I know some of our I know a bunch of our listeners wrestle with that. I've shared my stories of wrestling with it. So where does Because the layman's take on it is traditional psychology is focused on the things that are wrong

with this. Positive psychology is focused on taking you from a baseline to a higher point. But I don't. That doesn't make sense to me. I think that's a false It seems to me to be a false division. So how does this work in with people who might have something that might be considered more of a traditional mental illness, a depression or an anxiety type thing. Firstly, in today's world, it's it's so hard to even reliably define mental illness um with a new D s M. I don't know

what constitutes normal anymore. And something I've been really connecting with lately is research by John Caciopo. He has a great book out called Loneliness, and he points out that very often, not very often, but enough, doctors will will diagnose something as depression where it actually is loneliness, and they look very connected. And so while they're getting treatment for their depression, the heart of it is actually the root of is that they're lonely. So I'm going to

interrupt you on that because that's fascinating. But why do you not think there's depression support groups? I have been pondering that question because I agree, I think loneliness is a big piece of it. There is enormous number of support groups that proved to be enormously helpful to people. And I'm wondering, is it just that nobody has done it and pushed it or is it that you cannot

engage depressed people in that kind of way? Great question. Well, firstly, one of the leading researchers, the founder of positive psychology, Dr Martin Seligmann, actually started off as a depression specialist in studying depression UM and he became a famous psychologist based on his learned Helplessness theories, basically showing that one of the ways in which depression shows up is that people learn that they're helpless UM, they learned to be helpless,

and they take on internalize this belief that nothing I do matters, And the way that that shows up in our mind chatter is why bother? So, why bother going to talk to someone? Or why bother going to a support group? Nothing I do matters? So that could be one is that by that that that people aren't being reached at that time. Another version is just that it's just it's such a low level background music, and we as human beings are so resilient and we're so adaptable

that oftentimes we just we keep going. And so people are functionally depressed, not realizing that there could be another way, and um, so it could be also maybe depression groups are around and they're just not marketing themselves well enough

to even make it known to the public. I also think that mental illness or anything related to the mind scares the Jesus out of us, because when a person has a physical illness that you can see, or even a behavior that is concrete, like with an alcoholism, Okay,

well that's the concrete behavior. There's drinking. With sex acolics, there's a concrete behavior, food aholic, there's you know there there should be a support group that says, Hi, I'm addicted to my thinking, I'm addicted to my thoughts, I'm addicted to my emotions, whereas the e A, the emotional addiction groups. I actually think there is something called Emotions Anonymous, but it has never really gotten in any traction. I've never really even known what it does. But it's just

because there's blurred lines. It's it's all so blurry because even something like depression, it's like, am I depressed or is this just you know, I'm muddling through. This is just my life and this is just a tough time I'm going through and we are just now being able to understand what is actually happening in people's minds when they are depressed, and now we're relating it also to the body. How much of it is physiological. Some people will will have a massive shift in their depression as

they shift their diet. One of the but in terms of what can people do for depression, because I realize that even in our conversation, we're feeding one wolf, we're feeding the what's wrong wolf, We're feeding even the conversation of of focusing on on what isn't working because some people, UM would even say that even even depression actually serves

an evolutionary function. In terms of what people can actually do when they are stuck in sadness and depression, there's so much And if you define um depression as believing that nothing you do matters, or you learn that you're helpless. The minute a person starts to take small action steps and see positive changes, then they start to believe that maybe I can make a change. And so there's two interventions.

I mean, there's many, but the two that come to mind is firstly, this is one of the reasons why exercise is so beneficial for people with depression. Um. Firstly, you get your you get yourself moving, and you start to see physiological changes, whether it be my heart rate is up, I've broken a sweat, I feel a little better, I have a little bit more energy. You can't keep saying nothing I do matters, because here it is I

just made a change within my body. We also know that there's a b d n F and serotonin loop. So b dnf is a neurotransmitter that gets released in our brain, and basically what it does is that it helps the two neurons fire a little bit better together. It's like miracle grow for your brain. It helps the connections come together. It gets released when we're active, and when we're not active, it's it decreases its production. Even as much as twenty minutes of sitting will start to

decrease your production of b d NF. And there's a there's a relationship between b d n F and serotonin. So as b d nf is present, we release more serotonin, which makes us feel better, which actually releases more b d n f. In fact, some researchers would say that not moving, not being physically active, is actually like taking a pill for depression. Speaking of finding magic pills. You know, I often say to people if I had this pill that I would say, here, you take this pill, and

when you take this pill you get depressed. Would you take it? And say, of course not. But that's what many of us do when we don't physically move our bodies. So a great huge amount of exercise and it and it perpetuates itself as the I mean depressions. Once it's sort of set into a certain degree, it's defining characteristic to a large extent, is lethargy feeling that is. And so that's why we talk about exercise being so important, but that like a minute, just if that's all you've got.

But if you did a minute a few days in a row, you did something right and you succeeded at something. And it sounds silly, right, I mean, it's one of those things I've had. I've had people right and go, well, but look at these people. They didn't get there by doing a minute of exercise a day. And I said, uh, maybe not, but they started somewhere. They started where they

were yeah. Yeah. And that's the key point though, is that firstly, we want to give compassion to that wolf that compares and says, well, what do you mean a minute? Like you know this person is doing an hour. Even even social comparison that's biologically wired within us thousands of years ago, it was really useful and it's important that the person chooses that time frame, whatever that small step

is based on what's appropriate to them. For some people it might actually just be I got out of bed, and for others it will be I went for a minute long walk. One of the first studies in positive psychology had actually been done on looking at an intervention that was just for two weeks. People were told to write down three good things that happened to them that day, and for each of those good things, write down how

they contributed to that good thing happening. And what they found was that after two weeks, the group that did this compared to the control group, had a significant increase in their happiness level and a significant decrease in their depression level. And what they found is that a six month follow up, those those those um that effect was still present statistically significantly. And some people would say, really just for two weeks, doing something for two weeks would

have created that kind of change. And what often happened is that people experienced the benefit of it and they kept going. But the critical piece to that is not just the three good things that I'm grateful for, because many people will do that and they'll make it. They'll make their gratitude lists. They'll say, I'm grateful for my health and grateful for my family, grateful I have a

roof over my head. Day two, I'm grateful for my husband, I'm grateful that I can put food on the table, and I'm grateful for my health, and they just kind of get into this monotonous being around even something like their gratitude exercise. The brilliance of this intervention is actually also in the second piece, which is how did you contribute to that good thing happening? And what that starts to do is it gets a person recognizing that they're able to impact their life, and it shifts that left

something I do matter. So even if it's like I'm grateful that it was a beautiful day outside today, the person says, well, you know, how did I do? I didn't create the weather, but they stopped and they noticed it. So it's that self acknowledgement that starts to little by little build not a person's self esteem, but a person's self efficacy, a belief in themselves that they can make

something happen in their life. And this intervention is just as powerful for people who we would say are north of neutral or at that neutral point in terms of their happiness in their life satisfaction. You don't have to be in the negative zone. Um the idea of positive psychologies. It's not just about making people happy, it's about wherever you are moving you north of neutral in your own

life satisfaction. You said something yesterday that blew me away about this, and it's something I've thought about with gratitude. Is you said that people who don't feel grateful for something but do that exercise feel worse. Did I understand? You know? Actually, what it is is that people who know that they have a lot that they should be grateful for but can't feel it, it actually does more harm than good. So the guilt trip that I get

my kids on what they're starving children in Africa. You should be grateful for what you had, which I really try never to do, but it inevitable that it slips out occasionally. Yeah, and it happens to all of us. And and again this is where I have so much compassion for that wolf, the wolf that says, well, well know, I want things to be different. Um if sometimes the we don't let ourselves feel grateful for the things that we have because we think we'll just we'll get too content,

we'll get too complacent. If I just start finding things to be grateful for. Here, like I'm not happy in my body, I need to lose a hundred pounds. Well if I if I start to be too grateful, well then I'll stop working on this goal. As opposed to recognizing that, there's a lot of benefit to going into the positive saying I accept certain things are really good in my life. I see that they're good and things

will change. But when people you know that, when when people have a lot that they think that they should be grateful for. I have a beautiful house, I have a steady paycheck, I've got a partner who loves me. Yet why can't I feel grateful? That does even more harm. And the feeling part is what Burnet Brown calls foreboding joy. It's that we we don't let ourselves feel. It's like there's this this little flower starts to open up of oh this feels good and then one of the other

wolves comes in and goes, don't hey, be careful. You know if you feel if you get too happy about this, you know someone's going to come steal your thunder or what if you lose this? Don't enjoy this too much because this this can go away. Um. However, when we actually allow ourselves to feel grateful and um, some of the ways that I will have people do that is first I asked them, where do you feel that in

your body? Start with something that they can feel grateful for, like your mother, unless you've got some suggering mother issues, which not everybody can go to a positive place. Yeah, wherever it might be, start with where you're at. And actually I would say not your mother. Most people can get there quicker with their pet. So if you have a classic tager cat and just start there and I go, and I asked them just to connect with their body. Where are you feeling that in your body? Will focus

on letting that grow. Other times I asked them to think of something that they have in their life that they think they should be grateful for, but they can't generate that emotion. And then we do thought experiments. What would it be like if you didn't have this thing in your life imagining and actually walking that through. And some people would go, well, Amelia, why would you make that person think about the how bad that would feel? But sometimes we go into the negative emotion to then

really experience that positive emotion. But it is key that that that what makes those positive emotions effective is that you can feel them. It's not enough just to think them. And the negativity bias is that we have no problem feeling fear or anger or hurt or mistrust or any of those other things. And you can almost think of those emotions on a scale. And the reason why depression is the hardest is because it's one of the lowest vibrations,

apathy and depression. It's like trying, you know, and they say an object once and emotions stays in motion. And when someone is in that place where they're just like, the worst that can happen is I don't care. That's what happens sometimes with suicide, it's like I don't care anymore, I give up. I'd rather see a person be angry about where they're at than be depressed them with they're at. And obviously we honor where people are at every every chapter,

every stage of the game. But it requires a very different tool kit because there's almost like no energy there and you have to generate energy. I want to keep sticking with our wolf analogy because our metaphor, because that's what we're here for. And I would say that many of us feed feed the wolf of judgment and and and shooting on ourselves and not letting us and letting ourselves feel really happy and grateful for what we have.

I know, I'm like that, you know, I put all this work into one of my programs, and then my program happens, and I'm like, oh, that was nice, and I'm onto the next thing. And I'm always onto the next thing, and I'm always onto the next thing, and and that um. And I think the reason why we why we push ourselves in that way, is a useful thing to do. It's the same reason why we whip ourselves on the back saying you should go to the gym,

you should make a change. And oftentimes people think that they have to push themselves as the only way that they're going to make a change. And it's being able to hand hold both of those things at the same time. I want things to change and I'm gonna look for ways to feel positive right now, because in my choosing positivity, I actually gain resources in my mind and in my body that can help me move towards that goal. So what I mean by that is that, let's take worry

for example. So I want to scale my business, and in order to do that, I need to raise, say half a million dollars in order to scale my business, and I want and I'm worrying how am I going to do this? What if I don't do this? And the brain gives all of these I won't be happy until I do these things, And so there's there's not there's not that much positive emotion because how can I be grateful and happy for what I have right now? Because I need this and I have all these what

ifs going on in my brain. Well, people don't realize that the negative emotion and the problem solving are not the same thing. They can be. They can be stuck

together for people. But you can problem solve and take action towards your steps, action towards the things that you want in your life, and use a little bit of pain as a motivator, but not the amount of pain that we give to ourselves, and then on the positive side, the positive emotion of maybe pausing and taking being mindful and recognizing I'm grateful for what I've done thus far, or or looking at the resources that you have around you.

Anytime we start to shift into a neutral or more positive state, what happens in our brain is that we tend to think more creatively. I always say that, you know, you're not thinking about how you can cure rold tonguer when you just stubbed your toe. Because when we're in a negative emotional space, we narrow and we focus. We are our field of vision narrows, and are are the access to the areas of our brain, and our creativity

just narrows. But if we can get ourselves into an upward spiral, even if it's just hey, you know, they're beautiful things around me right now, then we can think more creatively. Um more concrete examples. So when somebody comes to me for for for career coaching, they've been they've been unemployed for a while, they've been searching, and everybody

tells them things like just follow your passion. And the P word has now become a curse word, you know, And and because they're digging and they're searching, and there's no worse feeling in the world than searching for something that you've lost. Right, It's like trying to find your keys and you just can't find it, and then you feel worse and it just becomes a narrowing and focusing

downward spiral. And what people end up doing is they keep going down there downward spiral because like, I have to to come up with something, I need to do something, and then they're they're feeding that negative wolf, not realizing that, hey, my keys are right here, and that the what I do with people is the first step to help them begin to uncover their life purpose or even think about what can they do, because literally ask them, you know, so, what are your options, and it's like looking at a

deer in headlights. They go, I have no options. I don't know. And it's not that they don't have any options, but in that moment, their brain can't give them access to them. So we'll start with tell me something good that's happened in the past twenty four hours. Tell me about a time in your life when you were you felt like you were at your best, and we start exploring the more positive side of their of their experience and doing that. Oftentimes all of a sudden, a creative

ideal come up. You know what, I just realized, you know, I'm really good at doing that, or that really lights me up, or sometimes you know, these miraculous things will happen, like they wind up talking to someone and a job shows up, and these I have examples of this in my practice come up all the time. But really what just happened is within that person, they shifted gears in their car out of narrowing and focusing into a more broaden and build space and more positive emotional space. Negative

emotions we associate with fight or flight. Positive emotions we associate with tendon befriend and we were more likely to like who wants to network? When you're down in the dumps and you feel like you've got nothing to offer. Your resume has been turned on so many times, and people say you have to go to a networking event.

You know, but when you can get yourself into a more positive, grateful, optimistic space, you're you're just naturally tending and befriending because that's just the gear that you're in your car. So many different thoughts there but it occurred to me that we hear a lot about that. Well, I don't want to be happy or content because then I would become complacent. And it just occurred to me as you were saying that that I don't think that's

what causes complacency. I think that's a complete myth. Now, there is something to be said for being young and hungry. But but as I think about my own life, because I always wrestle with this idea of how much discontent do you need in your current situation to push you? And so real life example, right, if I am working on a consulting job and I like it, right, it's you know, I do some e commerce consulting. I like it, I'm engaged, I'm but is it ultimately what I want

to be doing? But what I realize is that that being in that groove is the energy for everything else that comes. And it's that sort of tortured artist myth that's out there. Yeah, you said so many great things there, which one do I jump on? First? Um? Well, firstly about the how much how much pain do you use as a motivator? It's the law of diminishing returns. Many people think stress is a bad thing. And there's a

type of stress that's a good stress. It's called you stress in research EU S t R E S S. You stress is actually I think of it as useful stress um and that that you stress is the stress that motivates you. It's that time pressure, It's that sense of urgency. It's that you know, I have to make this business succeed because I've got I've got a kid to feed. You know, It's that thing that motivates you.

And then if you stay in that stress too long, it's the law of diminishing returns that then you get into a place of distress or chronic low love stress. And so being able to tell the difference is really important. Yeah,

we did. I did. One of the many episodes I did recently was on rumination and how that there's this we have a fallacy that if we keep thinking about something, somehow we're doing something with it, and the reality is we're making it worse because we be as we become more anxious, we become less able to problem solve the very problem that we that we have, which is so

counterintuitive to people. Yeah. In fact, a recent study just came out looking at comparing people who think about the fact that they want to become happier compared and how that affects their well being compared to people who take action. And of course this makes perfect sense that people who

take action would have higher that would be happier. But we actually have data now to show that people who sit around and who think I should be happier, not only does it not contribute to their well being, it actually takes away from their well being compared to people who even take the smallest action. May I share my theory and complacency with you? Um? I think one of the most brilliant psychologists of our time that has done, um that that has addressed this, but in some ways indirectly.

Dr Carol Dweck has done research on on mindset and her book is called The The Psychoic Mindset The Psychology of Success, and she identified that there's two different two different types of mindsets that a person can hold. One is a belief that things are fixed and another is a belief that things can change. One is a belief that either you have it or you don't, and another is a belief that no matter how much of it

you have, you can change. Now you can plug in for that intelligence, potential as a business person, talent for art or singing or dancing, or whether or not a person. When people come together and it's just if you're good fit, then you then you're perfect fit as a couple, and then things you just always work compared to no relationships require effort, and that no matter where you're at, it's

always going to be changing and growing. And so what she finds is that when people are in a inherit a fixed mindset, even if it's hey, I'm smart or or i'm a I'm a leader, um, but their belief is that either you're born a leader or not. Either you're born to be a success or you're not. What happens is that they're the ones who are likely to plateau. They're likely the ones to actually become complacent and not take that next step because if you look at it

as um, either you have it or you don't. Inherent this belief that a people are constantly judging you as either you have it or you don't. And what often happens is this fear, well it's like, okay, well I've reached a certain level of success, but if I if I try something harder, and I fail, Well, then people will find out I really wasn't as smart as they thought I was. And what often happens is that people's mindset influences how they treat challenges, how they treat opportunities,

and what they put their energy to. So when a person really becomes complacent, it's not that they became too grateful for what they had, because what we actually know the motto is what we appreciate appreciates. It's that that complacency is usually held back by a place of fear and a place of judgment and all those what ifs, and it's often linked because they believe that they would be exposed or it's like, okay, you know, what if?

What if I try something and I fail. Whereas those who take on the growth mindset, who are just curious and they recognize it's all about learning and it's all about growing, they don't become complacent because some doing something that's a little bit more challenging. Sure it's challenging, but that's where the growth happens. So we hear time and time again, and I think some people just want to puke when they hear this statement where it's like you

should enjoy the process and not the destination. Well, you can't do that in a fixed mindset, because the fixed mindset, when you're just trying to prove either you have it or you don't, it's binary. It's all about the outcome, and there's so much anxiety built into the process that you never really want to stop and enjoy the process.

Whereas in a growth mindset, where you it's you literally you get happy, you get off on the journey, you get off on the destination because that's what enables growth to happen. And when you believe, well, it's all about growing, it's all about learning, and then you really can enjoy the process, and then you get to the destination, and sure you might enjoy the destination too, but it's not any less satisfying than than the work that got you there.

And so complacency is almost like when you really talk to someone who embodies growth mindset, it's like, I wouldn't even come up in my mind to just become complacent or to think that I would just be grateful for what I have and therefore not able to do it. So I really think it all keeps coming back to what's a person's mindset. Do you ever have the urge to just drop the mic when you're done, like you know, like an m C does after they just nail it, just drop the mic and walk off. This would be

a moment that if you did, you could. It's so much respect for your technology. I would be all worried about what would happen to the to the equipment. Well, I think that might be a good stopping point, even though I could probably do this for hours, So I think maybe we'll have to do a part two. Thank you, because I want to explore savoring and lots of other things that that I know you talked about. But thanks so much for taking the time to be on. This

has really been I think it it tied. It is tied together so many of the themes that come up in the show in a really um coherent way, which has got to be positive for folks because the coherency is not coming from this end. So thank you so much for having me on. It's such a such an honor. Thank you, Thank you. You can learn more about this podcast and Amelia Schovatovskaya at one new feed dot net slash Jovatovskaya. I'm just kidding, good Luck,