Hey, guys, welcome back to the Do Life Big podcast! Boy, do I have a lot to fill you in on today. I almost thought for a second here that I might not be able to get this podcast up on this Monday morning, because as I'm recording this, we have just gotten back our power and internet as of late last night, because Hurricane Ian had just come through over the past week where we live down in Florida. And let me tell you what a whirl wind that was!
So let's just kind of backtrack here to last Monday. We live down on the west coast of Florida with our family, and hurricane Ian was supposed to be making a direct hit as a category four, basically, almost category five to our house. And the flooding was going to be the major issue. We have this home that is like a bomb shelter. It really is. It is solid. It has hurricane proof windows and garage doors. I mean, we're right at like sea level of like 10 feet. And so I'm never worried about the winds or anything like that because it is solid.
However, the storm surge was going to be this major problem with heart with this hurricane Ian coming through. And it was going to be pretty significant. And I really didn't feel like floating to the top of my roof with the kids and the dog. I just don't like to take chances like that in terms of risking my life with my family. Right? Why would I do that? So we decided last minute last Monday that our family and then another family who were friends with would go in on renting an Airbnb down in Orlando, we would just get away at least from the storm surge, we wouldn't have to worry about the flooding. And we would be safe there and all that.
So we packed up all of our things last Monday, got everything we needed. We got our dog, we got Landon's hedgehog (can't forget the hedgehog). We got all of our things, we piled into the car, the other family, they had all their things, too. They had their dog as well. They had a bearded dragon. I mean, it was 13 of us in this big massive house that could sleep 16 that we rented together. And we were going to be set we got there late on on Monday night, and ended up being a really great time. They have three kids just like we have three kids and they're all the exact same age. And the kids had such a blast. The adults had such a blast, we had just a lot of great memories, a lot of fun times a lot of drinking going down.
Because you know, at the end of the day, what can you do? Right? You gotta make the most gotta make the best of a worst case, stressful situation, I guess. And so we were there. And luckily, we spent four nights there, you know, just to be safe. We had lost our power here in our home in Florida. Like immediately as soon as soon as a storm hit. And by the grace of God, like last minute the storm instead of hit making a direct landing where our home was, it went just south of us. So we were very very, very lucky to basically have no damage done to our house at all except for about four or five screens around our pool came off and then we had a really big beautiful yellow flower and trumpet tree in our front yard that was added basically has to be demolished has a really shallow root system so they don't really last that long in these big strong wind storms that we have. So anyways, we're gonna continue to obviously pray for the people just south of us because it was very devastating for what they had to go through. It was it was a crazy crazy storm.
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What I wanted to talk to you guys today about was controlling the controllable because as we were going through this, and we were relocating, and we were in this AirBNB. And we were talking to all of our friends. We have so many friends here that live on the west coast, and just in all different parts of Florida, you know, it's, it's easy to kind of put your mind into a place of thinking about the worst case possible situations, like we know that it can happen.
We know about all the horrible things that could go wrong and all the worst case situations. But you don't want to get caught up in all that and all the what ifs because it's only going to make you feel worse, it's only going to increase the stress, it's only going to make you feel worse in the moment. And just give you all that anxiety that you don't want. You don't want to get caught up and all those worst case situations and scenarios. And I'm not just talking about which is this event I'm talking about. When events happen in your life and situations happen in your life, which they do all the time that are out of your control, you have to hope for the best and take it one day at a time, right?
Hope for the best, you can prepare for the worst. That's why we packed up all of our stuff, we left the house because we just really didn't know what the heck was going to happen. But hope for the best and prepare for the worst. And take it as it comes and deal with it then. And you know, the most common reaction that we have to uncertainty is to expect the worst, our brains are actually programmed that way they're wired that way our brains see uncertainty as danger. So it's not uncommon to have those negative thoughts, and to have those worst case situations. But this way of thinking is something that you can learn, and you can practice it. And you definitely should. Alright, you definitely should learn this new way of thinking and practice this so that you're not consumed by all these events that can happen out of your control, as you carry on through this wonderful thing called life. All right, so you can learn to give up these worst case, scenario mindsets.
This is actually what I teach my students in my signature program called the mindset accelerator. Now, it's not currently open right now for enrollment. But if you wanted to get your name on the waitlist, if this is something that you think might be something that you'd be interested in checking out, just go to kathireuter.com/ma - you can just put your name on there and check it out.
But you can't control what happens in life. Right. But you can control your thoughts or the way that you react to situations it's normal to have negative thoughts, right. So I don't want you beating yourself up. If you have these negative thoughts, everybody has them. It's totally common. It's just part of how we were designed to think this way to constantly scan our environment, looking for problems, to fix, looking for ways to make it okay, to make sure that we're going to be alright. And it becomes a problem.
When we believe those negative thoughts to be true, that's when it can start to lead to problems, and can lead to you feeling more anxious, because that way of thinking definitely doesn't help you. It doesn't help you in any way. I'm sure you can all relate to this, I'm sure you can all think of a time when something happened around you out of your control. And you had this one little thought that was obviously not a good thought it was a negative thought. And ended up spiraling out of control into this big snowball effect of worst case outcomes. How really did that make you feel? Right?
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No one really likes to feel this way. So I'm going to give you an example here. Think about those, those like really cheesy, gossipy magazines, right. Like I remember going in to get my hair done, like a long time ago, 10 years ago, and they used to have these like, you know, like the celebrity magazines. God, I haven't read those in forever. But think about those magazines and think about picking them up and reading an article in there about, like the latest celebrity and what's going on in their life. So when we read those articles, and we read those magazines, we know it's an exaggeration or fabrication, right? Like we don't believe every single little thing in the article.
I mean, we know that there is definitely a little bit of truth there. But we also know that there's a lot of it. That's not true. We don't believe the article is totally true, though. And we don't change our lives around those articles. The negative thoughts in our minds are just like those stories that you read about the celebrities in the magazines. The problem is, if we don't step back, to gain a more truthful perspective, then we may let those worst case situations and scenarios, run our lives. And we don't want that we don't want worst case scenarios running the show. We want to feel good. We want to be in control. And guess what? You can control your thoughts.
You can control the way that you feel you can control the way that you think and that is what we need to start focusing on. So I'm going to leave you guys with a couple of tips to help you out so that as you're going through your days, when things happen that are out of your control in Instead of letting your mind take you down that worst case situation, how you can actually stop yourself right in your tracks and start to flip that internal dialogue that you have, so that you're feeling better about yourself, and you're feeling better about the outcome.
So step number one, for these tips right here is to notice your thoughts. Some people don't even notice their thoughts, we're going through life on autopilot, we're going around, we're so busy all the time. And that way of thinking, is how most people think. And we do it all the time, several times a day without even being aware of it. So what I want you to start to do is, when things start to happen, that you don't have control over, just take a moment to stop and be aware of the thoughts that are going into your mind. At that time. Just stop and being aware of them is huge.
Step number two, is I want you to remember what you have control over. When something happens out of your control, we can't control it. That's why it's out of your control. And I want you to think about the thoughts that you're thinking in your mind. And I want you to remind yourself that you can control what you're putting into your brain right now. And the things that you're telling yourself.
Step number three, practice visualizing a more positive outcome, instead of going down that path of literally seeing every single thing that could go wrong. Every worst case situation that could happen like the absolute worst, how about you take a moment and you just sit there and you close your eyes, and you put yourself someplace relaxing and peaceful, where there's no kids running around? calling your name 24 by seven, like it is over here in my house, and sit there and close your eyes and really just visualize, well, what would the best possible outcome be? What would that look like? And you're going to notice that when you immediately just start to do that, and you make that shift, you are going to instantly feel so much better about the entire thing. Versus if you're sitting there thinking worst case situation, right? Stress, anxiety, nerves are like sick to your stomach out of control, like life is just flashing in front of me, I have no control over anything like what is happening to more hope and positivity. And just a better positive outlook on life. We all know that. Obviously horrible things can happen. But it doesn't help you to sit there and think about those things when they haven't happened, right? So sit there and put yourself in that place where you can just visualize what's the best, most positive outcome here, what's the best thing that could possibly happen here.
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And the last tip I'm going to give you is to flip your thoughts to the best possible outcome. So instead of sitting there saying like, Oh, you know, this, you know, I made a typo when I was at work. Now I'm gonna get fired, I'm gonna lose my job. Right? Flip it around, and it has not going to help you thinking that way. Right? That's, that's like worst case situation. You made a typo at work. I'm learning. I'm going to continue to get better and better. I'm only human. I make mistakes. It's okay. Right?
Just noticing that thought, remembering what you have control over, which is your thoughts, practicing visualizing a more positive outcome, the best case situation, and then flip your thought to the best possible outcome. Sometimes it's just a tweaking in the way that you word things that makes all the difference.
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So thank you guys so much for being here today. I hope that you enjoyed today's podcast episode. I really appreciate you spending your time with me today. I'm glad I was able to get this up on this Monday morning and our power and Internet came back. Thank you to everyone for checking in on us. And I hope you have an awesome day. Keep crushing it. I love you guys.
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Thanks so much for listening in. I really appreciate you choosing to spend your time here with me today and you totally rock. Hey, listen, if you love today's episode, go ahead and tag me on social and go share this with a friend right now. Like do it immediately. Well, the day gets ahead of you and you totally forget. Couldn't be more pumped to be on this journey with you guys. Go make today awesome. And I will see you the next time!
