With Alden Mills, Navy SEAL & former CEO of Perfect Fitness, & Author of Be Unstoppable: The 8 Essential Actions to Succeed at Anything. Join us in this insightful, inspiring, and super enjoyable conversation about the hardest of days, thriving in uncertain times, and what becoming UNSTOPPABLE really looks like. Alden shares how he overcame childhood asthma to go on to become a Navy SEAL, what an unstoppable mindset really looks like, and numerous strategies for making it through the toughest of days. This is a conversation that you don’t want to miss if you want to hone an unstoppable mindset.

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Biggest takeaways (or quotes) you don’t want to miss:

• Guts: Where you just get up and don’t dare give up. 

• Nobody defines what you can and can’t do. 

• “Who knows how long this journey is for each of us, so let’s make the most of it.”

• Doing the unknown is scary, it’s supposed to be that way. 

• When the going gets tough- what does it really take to get through it?

• Why hitting rock bottom is a powerful thing. 

• Focus on the moment- not the mountain 

Check out these highlights:

5:40 “I’m going to see if I can learn from someone new today.”

8:26 “There’s so many little decisions that we make every single day that we start to forget about – we get comfortable.” 

8:48 “These are the times we get to challenge ourselves, we get to go learn new things.”- uncertain times. 

9:30 Why finding a mentor is so important and where you can find one. 

10:55 “You can’t have courage without fear.”

15:50 “Everytime I get into a hard place, I ask myself – how much am I willing to sacrifice?”

19:00 The importance of a “swim buddy”.

20:49 The power of connection is crucial.

21:20 Be where your feet are. 

22:00 The tendency of the “Three Whats”

22:50 “What is” is the most crucial moment.

30:30 Why you need to practice positivity everyday. 

35:50 “Even in the hardest moments – open up to the unknown.” 

38:00 What to remember about thriving in uncertain times. 

41:27 If you knew you would succeed- what would you do?

How to get in touch with Alden:

On Social Media: 

https://www.youtube.com/aldenmillstv

https://www.linkedin.com/in/aldenmills/

https://www.instagram.com/alden_mills/

https://www.facebook.com/UnstoppableAldenMills/

https://www.twitter.com/aldenmills

FREE GIFTS FOR LISTENERS:

Download Alden’s lesson to thrive in uncertain times: www.alden-mills.com/remotelesson

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About Alden Mills, Navy SEAL & former CEO of Perfect Fitness, & Author of Be Unstoppable The 8 Essential Actions to Succeed at Anything.

Alden Mills is a three-time Navy SEAL platoon commander and was the CEO of Perfect Fitness, one of the fastest-growing companies in America. He is the author of Unstoppable Teams: The 4 Essential Actions of High-Performance Leadership and Be Unstoppable: The 8 Essential Actions to Succeed at Anything. A longtime entrepreneur with more than forty patents and more than twenty-five years of experience working with high-performing teams, he lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Learn more about Alden here: www.alden-mills.com

–> Check out all Guts, Grit & Great Business podcast episodes here.

Imperfect Show Notes

We are happy to offer these imperfect show notes to make this podcast more accessible to those who are hearing impaired or those who prefer reading over listening. While we would love to offer more polished show notes, we are currently offering an automated transcription (which likely includes errors, but hopefully will still deliver great value), below. 

GGGB Intro 0:00
Here’s what to expect today.

Alden Mills 0:03
And there are those moments in time where the real guts come from a consistency of just getting back up and trying again, in a different way. And it isn’t that, you know, it’s very few of these kinds of Braveheart, Gladiator kind of moments where it’s, it’s this glorified moment on the battlefield. It’s, it’s all these small moments of, you know what? I know my alarm clock is so many guys get up, I’m just gonna get up and I’m not gonna hit the snooze button. I’m gonna get back after it. And I’m going to see if I can learn from somebody new today. Like those are the real guts, the guts where you just get up. Don’t you dare give up.

GGGB Intro 0:50
The adventure of entrepreneurship and building a life and business you love, preferably at the same time is not for the faint of heart. That’s why Heather Pearce Campbell is bringing you a dose of guts, grit and great business stories that will inspire and motivate you to create what you want in your business and life. Welcome to the Guts, Grit and Great Business podcast where endurance is required. Now, here’s your host, The Legal Website Warrior®, Heather Pearce Campbell.

Heather Pearce Campbell 1:23
Alright, welcome. I am Heather Pearce Campbell, The Legal Website Warrior®. I’m an attorney and legal coach based here in Seattle, Washington and serving entrepreneurs, online entrepreneurs around the world. Welcome to another episode of Guts, Grit and Great Business. I am so excited to be sharing today’s guests with you. I have got Alden Mills with us. All done. Welcome. I am so happy that you’re here. Yeah, Heather.

Alden Mills 1:49
It’s an honor to be here.

Heather Pearce Campbell 1:51
Well, thank you. I so appreciate it. So who’s all in? Alden is a former Olympic festival rower, a three-time Navy SEAL platoon commander, and was the founder and CEO of perfect fitness, one of the fastest-growing companies in America. He grew up from zero to 63 million in sales, becoming the fastest-growing consumer company in America per Inc magazine in 2009. He is the author of unstoppable teams, the four essential actions of high-performance leadership and be unstoppable. The eight essential actions to succeed at anything. All done is a longtime entrepreneur with more than 40 patents and more than 25 years of experience working with high performing teams. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Alden Mills, welcome to my show. How are you?

Alden Mills 2:43
Great. I’m just hoping that I see some kids bust through the door here. And I can tell you right now, I might have four kids come running through at some point. So we should warn the listeners in advance.

Heather Pearce Campbell 2:54
That’s right. It could happen at any time. And sometimes I’m so my two years old, she’ll regularly come in and climb on this chair behind me. It’s my big cozy office chair. But sometimes she climbs on the lap and refuses to get off and daddy has to come down and retrieve her. So there’s a lot of texting that goes on in this house right now between various rooms.

Alden Mills 3:16
The joys of blended work from home, I get it.

Heather Pearce Campbell 3:20
That’s right. So Alden, I’m so excited to have you here and talk a bit about your story. I don’t know where you want to start, but you’ve got some really good, juicy stuff that we could dig into.

Alden Mills 3:33
Well, you know, as we were talking and preparing for this conversation together, and in the theme of your overall show, the about the guts, and about what it really takes. And I think the thing that I really want everybody to understand is there isn’t some special gut gene out there that Oh, you’re born with it. And you know, you just have it because you’re a Navy SEAL like I was a kid that was diagnosed with asthma at the age of 12 that was told to play the game of chess. Lee the less active lifestyle and it was my mom that would dig her fingernails into my forearm like velociraptor claws and, and would just say to me, you know, you listen to me. Nobody defines what you can or can’t do. But you know, of course, I didn’t get it that day or the next day. But you say it enough times, especially at the ripe old age of 12. You start to get the message and you know, she and I can still hear. So what if you scored on your own team in basketball? Go try another sport. Right. And I was terrible ball sports but the guts that that came from was actually because I had a mom who believed in me more than I did at that time. And there are those moments in time where the real guts come from a consistency of just getting back up and trying to get in a different way. And it isn’t that, you know, it’s very few of these kinds of Braveheart, Gladiator kind of moments where it’s, it’s this glorified moment on the battlefield. It’s, it’s all these small moments of, you know what I know, my alarm clock is telling me to go get up, I’m just going to get up and I’m not going to hit the snooze button. I’m going to get back after it. And I’m going to see if I can learn from somebody new today. Like those are the real guts, the guts, we should just get up. And don’t you dare give up.

Heather Pearce Campbell 5:43
Gosh, I love that so much. Your point about guts being something that you get to choose and that you get to continue to practice versus it just being, you know, born trait, I think is huge for people to understand. Because I think that you’re right, some people think like, oh, he just came that way, or she just came that way or being courageous comes naturally to somebody and it doesn’t come naturally to me. And like, I think like any of our traits, we get to lean into things one direction or not, I mean, I think back on my own childhood, and I was terribly shy, I went through this period, you know, in like middle school where I couldn’t look at people in the eye, I’d walk around and have this heavy backpack on and be looking down. And I got just teased mercilessly by my brother, who is older than me, right? But my dad gave me a book to read. And for anybody listening, like still to this day, it’s a book that changed my life, how to win friends and influence people. And I write I read it as like a seventh or eighth-grader, and I decided, like, my discomfort does not take priority over other people. And I think I see, like having courage and guts and a bit bit of the same light, like, we have an opportunity to decide whether our discomfort takes priority, or whether we’re gonna make a choice that’s more consistent with who we want to be in the world.

Alden Mills 7:11
Yeah, you know, first of all, totally agree, a powerful book, by the way. And you know that that was a transformational moment for you as it was for me to realize, like, Hey, wait a minute, I actually have a whole bunch of things that I’m in control of, I’m in control of my discomfort. I’m in control of what I decide I can or can’t do. And you know, your name of grit and guts. It is their swim buddies, they go hand in hand. Somebody is a Navy SEAL term, by the way for the smallest team, right? never do anything without your swim buddy, right? It takes guts to get up every day and keep going right to keep going as grit is great. We’re just, you know, we’re gonna grind this if we have to, but we’ll figure out other ways to do it. And when I talk about those components there, to me, those are everything in defining and when people have to just appreciate it is up to them. It’s up to them, what they decide they want to focus on, it’s up to them what direction they end up doing. There are so many little decisions that we take every single day that we start to just forget about because we get comfortable in this comfort zone and mediocrity. And we have to especially like these times where we’re isolated, and we’re quarantine and there are all kinds of uncertainty. These are the times that we get to challenge ourselves. These are the times we get to go learn something, these are the times under the most uncertain times that there is also equals amounts of opportunity. It just takes a different filter to find.

Heather Pearce Campbell 8:59
Hmm, I love that. Well, and I mean, clearly your mother, kudos to your mom for helping to shape that filter early for you. Right? What would you say to people who maybe didn’t have the benefit of receiving some of that through parenting or in their early portion of their journey?

Alden Mills 9:17
Find a mentor, you know, your father found you mentor, and how to win friends and influence people. And there are all kinds of mentors out there. And a mentor can just be a book. It can be a podcast, it can be an Instagram feed, but find something that you’re like, you know what, that resonates with me? That’s something that I can relate to. The one thing that I don’t want you to do that so many people will just throw their hands. I was like, oh, I don’t have a mom like that. I’m just stuck the way I am. I’m gonna be happy. I’m like, No, no, no, that’s a decision you’re making and that does Cut it. It can for you. But I can tell you right now you’re gonna be setting sail on a really miserable path. Yes. Who knows how long this journey is for each of us. So let’s make the most of it.

Heather Pearce Campbell 10:13
That’s right. That’s right. Well, and I loved your distinction because I totally agree with talking about guts and grit being swim buddies, right? I may not have used the term swim, buddy, but they absolutely go together. And the way that I see it is, guts is the activation energy required to make a hard choice or to make a decision, right and be moving in the right direction. and grit is what it takes to stay moving in that direction to stay committed to that path.

Alden Mills 10:43
Yeah, you know, some people may also refer to God says, well, Gods that’s courage, right? Well, you can’t have courage, without fear. So for everybody who’s listening like, well, I’m scared. Let me tell you how many times I’ve been scared. Actually, if I’m not scared, I’m usually gone home. I’m probably not pushing myself hard enough. Right? You got to start finding that filter. Because, yeah, doing the unknown is scary. It’s supposed to be scary. It’s normal to be scared. Right? What’s actually not normal, is to seek it. And the more you can start thinking about speaking it and just creating a little habit of, oh, little uncomfortable day, I’m a little nervous about going on the show with Heather, she gonna ask me, and, oh, it’s a great theme, and I don’t want to mess it up. Like, that’s a normal thing. So to have that Converse, right?

Heather Pearce Campbell 11:51
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I am pretty scary. So I’m glad you decided to join me after all. Awesome. And I love that the part about doing the unknown is supposed to be scary. Let’s dig into some of your past and talk to us about times where you took a leap into the unknown, and what that was, like, share some of your personal stories.

Alden Mills 12:17
I’ll tell you, the one that was really scary for me was showing up at SEAL team training. And there are 122 of us. And we’ve been in this kind of pre-phase training area for about seven weeks, and then they all gather us together. And this character comes out talking in a southern accent. And he says y’all want to know the secret. I’m making it through Navy SEAL training. We’re like, you know, 122 is like kids to a campfire, right? Just Yes, warm it. Because it ain’t complicated, is hard. But in a complicated, you see, you just have to decide how much you’re willing to pay. Now, here’s the rub. You see, I know for a fact 80% of you ain’t going to be willing to pay the price. You know why? Because y’all want to be a seal on a sunny day. And that’s a problem. Because you’re countries, you don’t need seals on sunny days. She needs them on scary days. It’s cold, and it’s dark, and it’s wet. And that crack over your head, and then thunder, there’s somebody walking dead, how bad you want to be a seal on that day. He goes on for a while, talks about creating this, like a hunk of metal and a samurai sword and everything. But that was the first time that we were taught to gone Hey, by the way, you could die doing this job. You really want to do this, you really sure you want to do this? Because I think you’re all thinking about what it’s like on a sunny day. And I bring that story up, because that one just keeps resonating with me on every single thing I’ve ventured forth to do. Because you do you have a tendency to think about things on a sunny day, right? Who doesn’t want to be an entrepreneur when you’re on the cover of some magazine or who doesn’t want to be an entrepreneur when your sales are gone off the charts, right? Who wants to be an entrepreneur the day the bank decides they want to call your loan and you cosign with your home. And your wife’s pregnant with number three at the time. How many people want to sign up for that one? How many people want to sign up or somebody sending back 50,000 units because the world’s gone to hell in a handbasket during the Depression. Not too many people. Right? Who wants to lay people off? No, it’s not fun to do. There’s a whole bunch of that and so I offer that story to you is we call that guy instructor half because it’s left cheek and been blown off by a rocket-propelled grenade. Don’t worry, you had a great sense of humor, he tell us. He, he could do more than half but then we could our full bugs. So.

Heather Pearce Campbell 15:14
That does take a good sense of humor.

Alden Mills 15:18
He probably could, actually. But so that was an early turning point. I mean, I was 22 years old when I was listening to that character. And, you know, the irony is, we had to do this physical fitness test to do official class up and half the class after they listen to that talk, then pass the text. And so, you know, I’ve carried that story with me my entire life. And every time I get into some hardpoint, I asked myself, okay, well, how much am I willing to sacrifice? That’s how much you want to pay, right? How much you want to give yourself to try and do something else?

Heather Pearce Campbell 16:01
Yeah, that’s right. And I think that story, so I recently it was funny because I launched this podcast, right guts, grit, and a great business. And I thought I was aware of Angela Duckworth book on grit. I haven’t read it yet. But I have a lifelong relationship with that word. So I picked it up. And I read it the other day, but she talks about the amount of work that has gone into trying to figure out for example, even like with your navy seal, batch of kids, right, trying to get into becoming a navy seal, and other really elite programs like that, what it takes, and for a long time, people have tried to relate the, you know, the outcome, the likelihood of a successful outcome for somebody to their inherent, you know, smarts or to their natural talent, or to any variety of things that they feel like are somewhat measurable. And it turns out, none of those things predicted the likelihood for success. It Right, it all boiled down to somebody’s ability to endure. And it really like so. So Angela came up with this whole quiz around grit and trying to determine how you measure somebody’s grittiness and which is why people that maybe they didn’t even expect to be the ones standing at the end were the ones that were standing and the ones that had a natural talent and the kind of bend and the, you know, the front of the line their whole life because of the way they could show up and perform. But when the going really gets tough, this gets back to your sunny day story, right? What does it really take to get through it may not be natural talent or smarts just takes making the decision that you’re going to get through?

Alden Mills 17:43
And the guts to try again. failed again. And again. Because you know, they don’t actually have that much time even though that portion of training is nine months. And then you go through another couple of years. But the component of not just the guts, but remember when I brought up the term swim, buddy, every single one of us had a moment of weakness. Every single one of us had that question mark of maybe I’m just not good enough for this. Maybe I shouldn’t be here. Maybe I chose the wrong door. Right? And, and that’s where your swim buddy would be standing right there next to you go, okay, I’m suffering too. But let’s do this. And, and I can’t stress enough like the moment you get teamed up with a swim buddy, your chances of success go up astronomically. And so anybody who’s seeing that sitting out there, listen to this podcast, and they’re like, Man, I’m having a tough time. You know, there’s COVID quarantine. And you’re looking at all the wonderful negatives that are out there. Because there you just turn the news on. And you got plenty of them. Don’t forget, there’s also the corner positive. And if you don’t have a swim, buddy, you can use this podcast is one but go find somebody that that can help you in those moments. Because I I tell the story sometimes about when I was class leader and how weak and one of my star teammates came to me and he said, Sir, when I walk out of this bathroom, I’m gonna go ring that bell. And I remember put my arm around him. And we looked at each other in the mirror and I said look at us. I mean, we’re, we’re a mess, right? It’s been out for three days straight. Oh my God take a deal with you. Because I feel just as bad as you do. How about we just wait to see the sunrise that will be in? We didn’t know how much time that would be extending of watches or anything. But how about we just wait for the sunrise and then we talk about it. And that’s all it took for him and then what ended up happening eight months later, he’s the honor man of the class. So we all can hit skid the bottom right? That is the good thing about hitting that rock bottom. It’s a great foundation to grow.

Heather Pearce Campbell 20:02
I love that. Yeah, the, the importance of a swim buddy, I just I can’t underscore that enough, like having people that you can rely on in those tough times, even just to hear you out or say you’ve got this, I know that you know, in my personal. I mean, I’ve had several in life where they’ve been very, very dark days. Even just remembering a story or remembering something else that was shared from somebody who had been through something extraordinarily tough was enough to keep me hanging on for another, you know, a few minutes just concentrating on my breath, or just getting through, you know, an excruciating amount of pain. And I just think the power of connection and the power of relying on strength shared by others is just crucial. So talk to me about rock bottom, you mentioned, you know, rock bottom, hitting rock bottom actually being, you know, a powerful thing for folks that are listening right now. And I don’t know, I mean, I’m sure that you’ve got multiple rock bottoms to share in your own journey, just given the size of your journey. But what do you say to people right now who are at rock bottom, who are really feeling compression, or pinched by current circumstances?

Alden Mills 21:20
Lookup, stop looking down. Right? Be where your feet are. Understand that anybody who’s been in any kind of a journey, that’s really worth something to talk about. Rock Bottom is a great storyline to start a new chapter. And yes, I’ve looked at bankruptcy three times, then within 30 days, all three times to say, Okay, I’m gonna have to file. And each time there was just this attitude of doing it, there’s got to be a way there’s got to be just another way one more day. Right? We have this tendency of what I call the three what, what was, what is in what will be. And what was, is helpful only from a reflection point of view of what did we learn, we can’t go back to what was no day, you can go back to it. Maybe Perhaps that’s why seal teams motto is the only easy day was yesterday. It was yesterday, it’s over, it’s done, right? You know, a pre COVID, post COVID, whatever kind of COVID. It’s, it’s part of our history, right? We can learn and take the joy and have the memories of it, but we got to leave it there. What is the most crucial moment because that’s the moment that we can actually affect a change, we can make a decision, what will be is something we have to be very careful with because we are built with a negative negativity bias. It’s natural, it’s there for our survival mechanism to make sure that we place a higher emphasis on negative than positive just to survive. Of course, we’re way beyond the saber toothed Tiger days of 2 million years ago, or whatever the saber tooth is mountain, which is love saber tooth, but cave bear whatever, right? But will end up happening is if we really just started thinking, let’s take this quarantine moment, like, ah, what’s happening, I can’t get my business to go, I can’t get my business to go and we get in and the shops aren’t open up and this doesn’t happen, then we start creating these if then negative hypotheticals or what I call them, and these negative hypotheticals are crushing to our ego, they will put us in the deepest depths of despair, because we will be self defeated before we ever even get to the starting line. A little bit like what instructor was doing right? He was kind of throwing it out there giving it you know, and just enough to be like, cool enough economic, I really want to be shot at like, I just want to be able to walk into the bar where the Navy SEALs tried to talk with, but what are you doing here? Right. So when you start thinking about rock bottom, the best thing to be thinking about is okay, let’s let’s just keep looking up. Let’s look at the next thing I can do to go one step higher. You know, people would say, Well, hey, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Now, how do you build something? One hour, one day at a time, and you’re jumping around here slightly, so much to talk about, but I enjoy climbing mountains and Every year, a couple of close friends, we’ll go climb a mountain together. And recently we climbed Denali up in Alaska and in Denali is very interesting mountain because you can’t see the summit until about 45 minutes. And it took 13 days to get there to that point, right. And it was miserable. I mean, it sucked. I was carrying 65 pounds on my back and I was tossing 85 pounds. And I was definitely not as aerobically conditioned as the other fellows and I was worried as holding people back. But here’s the thing. When you do those climbs, you can’t think about them out. You got to think about the moment. And I use this phrase focus on the moment, not the mountain. Focus on this one. Okay, you’re gonna rock rock. Great, right? Let’s play the opposite game. I can’t go any lower without explosives, right? So let’s now figure out a way to do one step, just one improvement. That’s all I need. Give me one improvement for this day, one movement. And before you know it, if you focus just on that one thing, each day, you’ll find that that rock will turn into a springboard for you.

Heather Pearce Campbell 26:24
Oh, there’s so much good stuff there to unpack. And I know this is a big conversation. But let me ask you this one question based on what you’ve been saying. Do you think that having guts or grit, whatever part of the equation, do you think that’s inherently tied to also being an optimistic person?

Alden Mills 26:46
Never been asked that question before. So let’s think about that for a moment. I would say that the guts and the grit are tied most closely to somebody’s understanding the outcomes of whatever it is they’re after. And if they’re willing to accept that outcome for whatever it is, then they will decide if they’re going to have the guts or the grit. Let me give you an example. In both of my books, I talk about this thing called outcome accounts where you define this goal. And I think, by the way, you don’t have to be positive to define a goal, you can be a realist, you can be somewhat negative and skeptical. Right? But you define this goal, and then you write down one side, you say, okay, on the positive side, if what happens if I make this goal? What’s the outcome? Number two, who does it impact? And number three? How does it make me feel, and then you do exactly the same thing on the negative column, at the same time. And if somebody, whether they’re positive or negative goes through and really decides about the consequences of achieving or not achieving set goal, that is going to motivate them to make a decision on you know what, that’s unacceptable to me, I might be negative, but it is unacceptable for me to raise children that aren’t loving, that aren’t going to be more productive for society, I am going to maybe negative but in maybe it’s negative world, but I’m gonna do my very best to be the best parent I can. Or I’m going to set that example so that they can do this. And I’m going to go after that business, even though I’m kind of a negative person, I’m doing it for my kids. Right. So I think from that point of view, that’s how I look at it. I obviously am an optimist. Quite a positive person. However, I was not born with a positive gene. Like people say that all the time, like, old it’s easy for you to see that I just you can’t be positive. And the fact of the matter is, No, I wasn’t. I was in the process of getting kicked out of SEAL team because they figured out that I had been taking asthma medication, and they knew that you’re not allowed to be an asthmatic. And I said, I’m not an asthmatic. I was doing that performance enhancement, which is kind of true. That helps you with get more oxygen in your lungs performance enhancement. Yeah. And so I had to say goodbye to the drugs. And I also had a decision to make I had to say like, Okay, well, how do I want to handle this? And it became an really important turning point for me. I’m like, you know what, I really want to make this I’m going to will this thing one way or the other, and I’m only going to think of things Things that are going to be helpful for me to get through whatever this next thing is. So when it would be these long runs that I always suffered on, I would just focus on my breath and feel like, Oh, I can feel it coming into my lungs and my lungs are pushing it back out. And you know, you visualize those things, and you just get so I geek out on that. Now, did I still have some lung problems from time to time? Sure. Did it me? Did I grow out of some of the asthma, perhaps I’ve been taking the medication for 10 years. But those were things where I became very intentional about being positive, and about practicing positivity, which by the way, you have to do every single day, it’s not what you want to. It’s when you’re handed that seemingly negative outcome of something and say, Well, actually, this is another opportunity to learn. Well, I can actually get better this struggle will build strength for me cool. A lot of people would be like, this sucks. I can’t believe this happened to me, this happened to me. And I didn’t deserve this right? And then the pity party happens and they turn into a victim and then things shut down.

Heather Pearce Campbell 31:14
Well, and I love the reframe that, because for me personally, when I witness people that have you know, we’ll just call it high levels of guts or grit. Usually, what I see from the outside is somebody who is or seems to be a naturally optimistic person, meaning that even in the toughest of times, they’re either looking for opportunities, or they’re looking for even the slightest change in circumstance that’s going to help them move to the next level, versus somebody who is mired in the other side of the conversation, which you pointed out, which is the what-if right, the kind of the downward spiral of spiral of the what if scenarios that are usually leaning into our negative bias.

Alden Mills 31:59
Right?

Heather Pearce Campbell 32:00
Right.

Alden Mills 32:02
Yeah, go ahead

Heather Pearce Campbell 32:03
But really quick. I was just gonna say I love the reframe of calling it instead of maybe calling it being, you know, naturally optimistic or deciding optimism as the path, you know, really practicing positivity, because that feels more empowering for somebody to be able to choose that and say, I’m going to practice positivity, rather than be stuck in the conversation of like, well, maybe I’m just I wasn’t born with optimism, or I am not naturally an optimistic person. Anyways, I just wanted to point that out. I think it’s a really good reframe.

Alden Mills 32:34
I wholeheartedly agree, Heather, and the more people start to understand, there’s very few things we can control. However, we can control how we think there are lots of people who want to influence how we think, but it’s really deciding up to us if we accept their influence or not. We can decide how we feel, and who will go and how can you do that. If you stand tall and smile, it’s really hard to feel sad, right. And then we can control our actions, assuming you’re lucky enough to use your arms and legs and making make that actual decision curve of movement, which not all of us can do. Even if we just have our heart in our head, it’s still an amazing amount of things that we can make an impact on. But we have this tendency to get trapped and all the noise out there. All that noise floods, our system overwhelms us and our negativity kicks in because it’s sort of survival mode. And we just have to survive. And then we end up creating these false pretenses of negative hypotheticals that just send us down this slippery slope of misery.

Heather Pearce Campbell 33:45
Yes, it’s, I think, I think calling it a practice, I like I love that part of this conversation, calling anything a practice, whether it’s dealing with mindset, dealing with just a million decisions that we get to make on a daily basis, especially in the midst of tough times. I think I recall back to a time when I was pregnant with my daughter, I had this period of time where I’d gotten sick, the doctors didn’t yet know that I was having some reflux, like really severe esophageal reflux due to pregnancy. And I think some other conditions that happened before pregnancy. But what it meant is I had this recurrent cough during pregnancy and what they didn’t know as I was aspirating, all this stomach acid into my lungs. And so then I’d get pneumonia. So I had three rounds of back to back pneumonia during my daughter’s pregnancy. And I was coughing so hard, I broke, I broke ribs and then I fell down the stairs and broke another rib. And it was this never ending, like battle. I just felt like I was in the battle for my life of just trying to breathe just trying to figure out what was going on up here. took a lot of work, but the one thing I would tell myself literally minute to minute, there was about a month at the end of her pregnancy where I couldn’t sleep, like even for five minutes at night, I just had to, like stand in the shower or buy a humidifier to try to keep my airways open was really, really intense. And I remember the one phrase I hung on to is, it’s not always going to be this way. It’s not always going to be this way, even though I didn’t know what was next, I just write the power of that one phrase of just saying, it’s not always going to be this way, may not be this way, in five minutes, may not be this way in 10 minutes, I don’t know. But it’s not always going to be this way. And for longer,

Alden Mills 35:37
I totally agree with that. I love that it’s not always going to be this.

Heather Pearce Campbell 35:42
Yeah, and I just know the nature of life is that even in the hardest moments, even if we don’t know what comes next, or how we get we’re gonna get there. Even if we can’t really move ourself into the super positive side of the equation or the conversation, I think just opening up to the unknown. And just saying, one thing I do know is it’s not always going to be this way, allows us that sliver of hope that things will shift. And I hear that even in you know what you’re talking about in some of your stories and looking up, and really practicing being in the moment, right, we can’t change what happened yesterday, we have no idea what’s coming in our tomorrow and just really being in the moment is the only thing that we can do.

Alden Mills 36:28
Thank you for sharing that.

Heather Pearce Campbell 36:30
Well, yeah, I just your message hits home in a big way. And I just I want people to really understand, you know, the power of our minds, the power of even being able to open up to a little hope or positivity as a way to shift even just how we move through something, regardless of whether we get to control any of the circumstances or not.

Alden Mills 36:51
Yeah, you know, I just made me think of it it. It really is kind of a continuum, right? If you’re on one side of that, that number line of a continuum of RM negative, the world sucks, I’m miserable. And I’m going to be miserable. Like, okay, well, are you? Is everything like that? Well, no, not all the time. Like, it’s just a little step, right? And then when you get to that little step, then you’re like, Hey, you know what, I can actually affect a little bit more change. You don’t have to be Captain cheerleader positive over here. And I think some people will be like, Oh, I hate the person that says every day is a glorious day and blah, blah, blah. And, you know, they can be a little more real doesn’t. I get that? But it is a continuum, right? Don’t focus on the mountain of moving from one side of the continuum to the other. Just big step.

Heather Pearce Campbell 37:45
Totally, totally. And that feels a lot more empowering to me. Because, you know, the reality is, is if you are in a really, really hard place, it can be hard to hear from somebody who’s all rah, rah rah, you know?

Alden Mills 37:59
Oh, yeah.

Heather Pearce Campbell 38:00
I mean, it. Totally.

Alden Mills 38:03
No, shut them down. And then they, the amygdala is fired. And they’re like, I don’t want to deal with that person.

Heather Pearce Campbell 38:08
Yeah, yeah. But staying out of the black and white thinking, staying out of the far end of what really can lead to hopelessness. I think, just opening up to one step one step one step is really what can create dramatic change. And it doesn’t have to be a huge thing.

Alden Mills 38:30
Oh, by the way, that’s how to get out of that. Right? It’s one step one climb just one little notch at a time to get us.

Heather Pearce Campbell 38:40
The bottom of rock bottom. That’s right. That’s absolutely right. Well, all than anything else that you want to share with us today about thriving and uncertain times.

Alden Mills 38:50
I really would like everybody to remember that there is this law of nature out there that says for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. For every amount of uncertainty we face, there is always an equal amount of opportunity. It may not be served in the same form you’re used to during times of certainty. And I promise you is there and it’s there for everybody to take. They just have to shift their thoughts, open their minds and look for it.

Heather Pearce Campbell 39:30
What is a question or a statement for people that are in that place of, you know, of hardship and, and risk and unease? What’s a question that they can ask themselves, to shift into even being able to see something as an opportunity? Like if they if they are not naturally doing it themselves already? How did they get there? I guess that’s a more appropriate way to ask that question.

Alden Mills 39:59
So there’s There’s a few questions that I’ll ask myself. What am I pretending to know that? I don’t really know? That’s one. Number two, what is a belief that I currently hold that if it shifted from a negative to a positive, I would change my direction? That that’s some work there. But we all have a belief system. And being able to get into those beliefs and identify a belief that is holding you back is a critical component to deal with right now, maybe your belief is that my business is done because I can’t open my storefront. Okay, well, what if we told you it wasn’t done that you can still do business, but you have to look at your storefront in a different way? Oh, okay. I never thought of that, right. Unfortunately, a lot of times what happens is frustration, immediately leads us to anger. And then anger triggers that little walnut sized piece of our brain called the amygdala, and then we get into fight or flight, and we’re not thinking creatively. And we need you to step in creatively. So another one might be, if I knew I could succeed, right now, what would what would I be doing? What could I do?

Heather Pearce Campbell 41:34
I love that.

Alden Mills 41:35
So those are three.

Heather Pearce Campbell 41:38
Well, and I think the importance of recognizing our beliefs is just huge. How many times do we have a belief that this shouldn’t be happening, right? This whole? Like, why is this happening to me, this shouldn’t be happening. It’s bad. Also labeling it, right? This is harmful or bad or causing pain in some way. And I think asking, you know, what, if this is the thing that is going to get me to the next level, you know, what would that look like? Or what if, what if what if this thing that is happening right now that is causing so much pain in two years turns out to be a great thing, like, again, opening up to not knowing and which is why I love your question is if I knew I could succeed right now, what would I be doing? A little bit of twist on that? Like, what if this thing was actually serving me? If I was using this to succeed? What would I be doing? Right? Awesome. I think you’ve got a gift for us. Right? You have a gift for our listeners today. Do you want to talk to us a minute about that?

Alden Mills 42:42
A gift for the listeners?

Heather Pearce Campbell 42:44
Yeah, was it? Do you have a lesson to thrive in uncertain times?

Alden Mills 42:49
Oh, yes. Yes, I do have that lesson to thrive and uncertain.

Heather Pearce Campbell 42:54
I love it. Just so people know where they can find it. If you go to the show notes at legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast, you’ll get a link to audence gift. Check it out,

Alden Mills 43:07
it will help you with a six essential actions of thriving during a quarantine?

Heather Pearce Campbell 43:13
Yeah, well, we all have lots of opportunities, like you and I were talking about right now, before the podcast started. lots of opportunities to uplevel our skills in pretty much every department of life Currently, I’m going to go check that out myself as a mom to two little people and trying to run a business at the same time. I feel like I’m in a massive period of compression and that, you know, things I used to be able to do in eight or 10 hours a day need to happen in like two.

Alden Mills 43:42
And you know what, you’re doing it with a smile on your face. You’re doing just fine, Heather.

Heather Pearce Campbell 43:47
Well, thank you all done. So great to have you today. How can people get in touch with you if they want to learn more? or hear more about how you help people with mindset with business, the range of your work,

Alden Mills 44:00
Please come to my website, and they can see my blog posts, my Instagram feed Facebook feed. I’m generating new content all the time and always happy to help.

Heather Pearce Campbell 44:14
I love that. And what are the ways really quick before we sign off? What are the ways that you work with your clients.

Alden Mills 44:21
I am a coach and a speaker. And most of the coaching is either one on one with executives or in small executive teams. And then I also come in to do keynote speaking and seminars specifically around leading yourself, leading others and going through my unstoppable mindset workshop.

Heather Pearce Campbell 44:48
I love that. So if you’re listening and you’re building a business, you’re leading a team and any of Oden’s advice or stories have resonated with you today. reach out and connect with him on Instagram. Pleasure to have you.

Alden Mills 45:01
Thank you and keep inspiring the guts in the grid.

Heather Pearce Campbell 45:07
You know, we got to hear the stories we got to hear how other girls made it through. Yes. Such a pleasure to connect talk soon.

Alden Mills 45:15
Thank you.

Heather Pearce Campbell 45:16
Bye bye.

GGGB Intro 45:21
Thank you for joining us today on the Guts, Grit, and Great Business podcast. We hope that we’ve added a little fuel to your tank, some coffee to your cup and pep in your step to keep you moving forward in your own great adventures. four key takeaways links to any resources As mentioned in today’s show and more, see the show notes which can be found at legal website warrior.com slash podcast, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and if you enjoyed today’s conversation, please give us some stars and a review on Apple podcast, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast so others will find us to keep up the great work you are doing in the world and we’ll see you next week.