On today’s episode, we’re talking about how-to inspire vs. convince another person of something.

Fed and Fit podcast graphic, episode 111 how to inspire vs. convince with Cassy Joy

We’re back with our 111th episode of the Fed+Fit Podcast! Remember to check back every Monday for a new episode and be sure to subscribe on iTunes!

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Episode 111 Transcription

Todayโ€™s show is brought to you by Aaptiv! Aaptiv is a fabulous app and robust online community that allows you access to top notch, motivating personal trainers who guide you through an audio-based workout that is timed to your choosing with fun, perfectly synchronized music. Like Netflix for fitness; Aaptiv gives members unlimited access to their entire bank of high-end, trainer-led workout classes. So if youโ€™re looking for fresh, high quality, on the go, motivating workouts that adapt to your lifestyle, I highly recommend Aaptiv.

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Cassy Joy: And we’re back with another episode of the Fed and Fit podcast. Thank you guys so much for dialing in this week, and maybe every week. I was recently listening to a podcast, and the host of the show gave a special shout out to anybody who was listening to episodes; and episode after episode, kind of Netflix style. So I want to hat-tip out to anybody, if anybody is out there listening to the show in that regard. Goodness. More power to you. Thatโ€™s a lot of my voice in your ear {laughs}. And I am honored. So thank you so much for the privilege to chat with you guys every week.

So, today we’re going to talk about; you know, I have to be honest. Todayโ€™s show was supposed to be different. I was supposed to be {laughs} I was supposed to write an episode about the five pieces of advice to ignore. And while I still think that’s a great episode idea, and I have lots of notes on it, when I was typing out my thoughts on that episode, another topic that is kind of a burr in my saddle right now kept coming out and I kept trying to fit that other thing into the five pieces of advice to ignore. So I said; โ€œForget it. Iโ€™m just going to do the show that I want to do.โ€ And so today we’re going to talk about something that is near and dear to my heart. And I’m not bringing it up; I was really hesitant to record this show, because I don’t want any one person to feel bad, or to feel singled out, or anything in that regard when it comes to today’s show. It’s not that there are any; Iโ€™m not trying to shame anybody if they are doing this thing that we’re going to talk about. I just want to shed light on an alternative way of going about life. Not going about life; thatโ€™s way too grand. But an alternative way of maybe communicating with other people. And I hope that it lightens the load. I hope that things become easier for folks. And overall, I hope this is just a casual inspiring solution for folks who may be looking for it.

So, what we’re going to talk about today is the difference between inspiring a person and convincing a person. Ok? Now these are two very distinct, very different concepts that have two very distinct, very predictable outcomes. OK? And where does this come from? Why is this showing up in the Fed and Fit podcast? Well, I can tell you, I come across it a lot in my life. And I’m sure that even if you’re not in the world of health and wellness education, you probably come across it casually a bunch as well. And it comes up a bunch here if we as nutrition educators; clearly I have a bias. Clearly my bias, my nutritional bias is towards real foods, right? I do believe that real foods are far superior, based on my personal experience. And as such, I try to do my best to educate. And I put stuff out there. But I put it out there, right? Iโ€™m not necessarily saying that everybody should be following these rules. Because I’m not dogmatic about these practices. And as such, I really believe that the fosters sort of a pick and choose what you will, fun, educational, supportive environment. Ok? So nutrition, it comes up a bunch. And when we are brand new to maybe a new way of eating, or we are brand new to having gone off gluten, or changed something significant in our life. Maybe we stopped drinking diet sodas. Whatever the heck it is, and we feel great, we feel then at that point called, in a lot of ways, and inspired in a lot of ways to pay it forward. And we want to tell more people about it. We want to share the good news with them. And that is where this divide happens.

That is where you can either; again, I said this when we were in Vancouver recently at a book signing. I was up there with Diane Sanfilippo. And I said, I hate to sound too Oprah right now, but you come to a fork in the road. Or a Y. And on one side, you can march down the path of trying to convince somebody else of the things that you know to be true. And it’s usually typically very harsh, and firm. And then on the other side is a road that leads you towards inspiring them. And weโ€™re going to talk about the distinctions there. But those two roads are very separate from each other, and they lead to separate places. Now, you might have outliers; you might have random exceptions that find their way back into the middle. But for the most part, they are different directions. And when weโ€™re very excited; letโ€™s say we just healed our gut, or we just got our energy back, or we just lost 30 pounds. Whatever it is, we’re very excited about it. I understand the desire to want to convince people of the same thing that you finally learned for yourself. But what I cause you to pause on is that nobody convinced you to do that. To make those changes. You were inspired, and then you made the decision for yourself to pursue them.

The same can be said for safer skincare, for example. I see this come up a lot. As you guys know, I am a Beautycounter consultant. Itโ€™s a company I am very proud to work with. I absolutely adore the company overall, and I, as a personal consumer, I really enjoy the products. They are safer alternatives to the other stuff that’s out there that I trust, they work really well, and I feel confident recommending those as a safer alternative to you guys. To readers of the blog, of listeners of the podcast, and to folks that I am in a community with on social media. So, Iโ€™m excited about that. But I do not feel that it is my job to convince you all to make changes to your skin care routine. My job is not to convince you. My job is to talk about it, right? Just to create some awareness around the fact that there is some pretty scary junk in our skin care products out there. Weโ€™re not protected in the way that we think we might be based on the ingredients showing up on shelves across the country. But talking about that, my motivation is not to convince you then to go pitch your Cetaphil and replace it with a safer face wash. My objective is just to give you information so that you can make the decision for yourself.

I recently had a very long conversation with my friend, Diane Sanfilippo, about this as well, and what came up was. this is the truth. This is the truth, you guys. This is the real-real, as they say. Or theyโ€™re starting to say. It feels so cool using that expression {laughs}. The real-real is that at the end of the day, I don’t care which direction you choose. I have no personal stock in whether you choose to switch out your skin care or whether you choose to start eating more real food, or whether you choose to stop drinking diet sodas. I don’t. I don’t actually care what you decide. What I care about is making sure that I’m putting out the best information so that you can make an informed decision. Whatever your decision is from here out is up to you, and I respect that. I respect your decisions. I truly do. Even if what you ultimately decide does not align with what I’ve decided. That makes no difference to me. Ok? And so I think that in order to get to a place a distinction where you go down the road of inspiration versus convincing; and again, Iโ€™ll talk about the symptoms of both in a second. But in order to really live in that world of inspiration and have the impact that you probably want to have, you have to get really comfortable with not actually caring. Not taking it personally if someone chooses to agree with you or not. Ok? Our job is just to share our story, to educate lightly, you know. To put stuff out there if you feel called or inspired to educate the world. Then start a blog. Right? Start putting that information out there. Why does this podcast exist? Because every once in a while, like this episode, I have a burr in my saddle. But itโ€™s not up to me to call people and to convince them of this way. Itโ€™s up to me to just share this information and then say at the end of the day, โ€œDo with it what you will.โ€

Ok. So, let me give you another background story. When it comes to convincing versus inspiring, there is nothing more frustrating than as a nutrition consultant, and somebody who I had my own transformative health journey. And I talk about this a lot because I want you to find comfort in knowing that you’re not alone in being frustrated sometimes. So I had my big health transformation in 2011. It was over; nope, nope. Sorry, that was 2010. 2011 is when I launch my blog. So this was over seven years ago. Big changes went on in my life. In a nutshell, I was in my early twenties, and then all of a sudden, because I changed the way I was eating and I started to pursue anti-inflammatory foods, and eliminated the inflammatory foods, like wheat gluten, goodness, diet soda, the artificial sweeteners, conventional dairy; what else is on that list? I essentially started following paleo, but I was such a stick in the mud that I refused to call it paleo back then. Anyway, so I eliminated those things. I started doing a mixed fitness program that integrated weight bearing activities. Which was something that Iโ€™d never done before. I started drinking more water, and I started placing a different kind of high priority on sleeping at night.

And in the span of; of course, there were changes along the way. But big picture, about nine months is when I really sat down and looked back on where I had started. And in nine months, I had remarkably more energy than I had ever had before in my life. That I could ever remember having, even as a kid. The joint pain that I had in my knees and my hips. It was debilitating. It was debilitating; and what I was doing was I was eating low fat foods, and I was running. I was trying to run the weight off, because I was tired of going back to the store; Express, specifically, to get one size larger in those editor pants every couple of months. I was tired of my body growing, and I thought it was just adulthood, and I thought I just needed to diet. So I would run, run, run. And because of the inflammatory state of my body and the fact that I was putting so much high impact on my joints, they were in bad shape, you guys. And at the end of that nine months when I was looking back; all of a sudden, I thought to myself, โ€œMy joints feel better. They don’t crack and pop and hurt when I walk.โ€ So that was remarkable. More energy. I was sleeping more soundly at night. All of a sudden, I felt like I had the focus than I had always dreamed of. I wanted to go back and go through school all over again. I was a good student, but man. It wa a struggle for me. I had a hard time focusing in class. Honestly staying awake and alert was difficult for me. Recalling information. I had to work really, really hard. And all of a sudden, information became so much easier to retain.

All of those were huge wins. My skin healed itself. It started to look so much better. And then lastly; lastly, because really looking back, this is the thing that I was the most OK with having gone away, in terms of I did not want to give up on the energy that I had, and I didnโ€™t want to give up on the focus, I didnโ€™t want to give up on the pain having gone away. But the B-roll to the successes was, I also wound up losing 10 dress sizes. I went from a size of a 12/14 to about a 2/4. And although body image was something that I had struggled with earlier in my life, at that point in time, because my mindset finally shifted. I finally got to a healthy point where I stopped caring so much about the aesthetics, and I started to care more about how I was feeling. And those changes were just; they were just there. It wasnโ€™t something that I equated to it being a success or not, but it was something worth mentioning. So anyway. Big changes. I only lost about, no more than 10 pounds, because I was gaining a lot of muscle at that time. And as you guys know. fat takes up much more room than muscle mass does. I was very inflamed beforehand and I had gotten that under control.

So anyway, I had this huge, huge transformation. And what would you expect when you come out of a huge transformation like that. You would think; you would hope then that your closest friends and your closest family members; you would want that for them also. Right? Thatโ€™s only natural. You would want all of a sudden your mom and you dad and your sisters, and maybe your husband, and maybe your brother, and maybe your best friends. If theyโ€™re struggling with things, if you see them being tired, and you see them feeling rundown, you would want to run up to them and say, โ€œStop eating tortillas! Itโ€™s the tortillas!โ€ {laughs} Or whatever it is. โ€œStop drinking the diet cokes!โ€ Whatever those things are that come to mind. โ€œJust follow paleo!โ€ You want to shake them, and you want to say that. But at the end of the day, when you approach somebody like that, what do they hear? They hear that you are going to try to rip that tortilla or that cupcake or that diet soda right out of their hands. And itโ€™s going to be this difficult challenge. You’ve skipped over the really critical component of their mindset.

And part of that mindset that needs to be in place in making healthy positive lasting changes is a person has to decide it for themselves. In order for anything to be true to them, and lasting to them, it cannot be told to them. It cannot be told as something they should do, and that’s why they do it. They do it because the decide for themselves if this is what I want to do. And that is a very difficult thing to respect, especially when you’re hopped up on a major personal win. And so the personal story one to tell was, of course, are so thrilling to tell was of course that’s my background. That was my transformative journey. But with my personal friends and family, I did that. I launched a blog shortly thereafter, Fed and Fit. You guys might be familiar with. And then I went back to school, I became a certified nutrition consultant. This started to become my profession. I worked with folks one on one, and then I turned that into an online program.

And you know what? The closest friend; as my online community kept growing, which was of course wonderfully validating and very comforting to know the there is a tribe of you guys out there, that we’re all birds of a feather. My closest friends and family didnโ€™t jump on. A lot of them thought that I had a screw loose. They really did. And some of them probably still do. And that is fine. It really is fine. It took an extraordinary amount of restraint, especially when I was the most excited and the most fresh off the transformative boat, right? When I was the freshest into this new way of lifestyle, it was very challenging to bite my tongue, and to respect their decisions. Especially when I thought I had just found this secret, and I wanted everyone to know my secret. I wanted to share it with the world. Which I did, in the form of a blog. But it wasnโ€™t my job, then, to convince friends and family of that. Because what happens when you try to convince people of things, you wind up really pushing them away. Not only from you, but you may also be pushing them away from that actual solution itself. If you’re constantly trying to force paleo on somebody, or safer skin care on somebody, truth be told, adults are a lot like children. The more we tell them that they should do something, the less they may want to actually do that thing.

So my personal friends, or my closest family members, it wasnโ€™t until; letโ€™s see, my parents let me talk about {laughs}, they very patiently let me talk about this story quite often. But my parents, it wasn’t until my mom came back with blood work that scared her. And the doctor said that she needed to go on some major medications to monitor her blood sugar, and her blood pressure, and her cholesterol. All of these things were very scary. Her weight kept growing. She was feelings really groggy. And it wasn’t until that point, after four years, you guys, of me doing this work and just being. I did not hound them. I did not suggest to them that they should change certain things. I just lived the way I lived, and I lived by example. And if they had questions for me, I would happily answer them. But it was never seen; their questions were never seen as an opportunity for me to then jump through and tell them about all the things they should be doing. I was patient. And I just sat there. I made my decisions, and I lived by example. And it wasn’t until they asked for advice that I gave the advice. It was not until she approached me and said, โ€œWhat do I need to do to get these numbers corrected.โ€ And even then, it was a collaborative conversation. Even then, this is how I approach all of my nutrition clients; or back then when I had one on ones, it was a conversation where I said, โ€œWell what do you think?โ€ Right? IT had to be her idea. It has to be their idea. It has to be their decision, and their commitment. And if it was just me spoon-feeding her information; I can honestly say, my gut says that there was no way it would have stuck the way that it stuck.

So she jumped in. We collaborated on a solution for her, and I say this joke all the time, but I love this example. She’s my favorite client, A) because she’s the one I can talk about {laughs}. Sheโ€™s given me explicit permission. And B) I think it’s a really wonderful example. But she said, โ€œI wonโ€™t give up my wine, and I wonโ€™t give up my cheese.โ€ And I said, โ€œThat is great. We can totally work with that.โ€ And so together, we put our heads together on something, a protocol. Not only for food, hydration, sleep, and some sort of physical activity that she felt as if she chose it. Ok? So at that point she was led down a path of inspiration. And so what happened? In the span of, Iโ€™m going to give her a full year, because of course there were monstrous milestones within that year of progress. But in a span of a full year when she went back for that anniversary checkup; she had been to the doctor several times between. Because what they gave her was three months. They said; fine. Go see if you can tackle it. Good luck, with diet and exercise. And then come back and weโ€™ll see you in 3 months and weโ€™ll go ahead and put you on those medications was the tone in which she had received that advice. And she came back, her numbers were getting significantly better, and in the full span of a year, the woman have lost 45 pounds of body fat that she had to lose. Some of it was inflammation. And every single one of her numbers was in a healthy range. Miraculous. Truly miraculous. And you know why it worked? Because she was inspired to do it. She did not do it because I convinced her to. Ok? So that just the personal story there.

Of course it was frustrating to watch my parentsโ€™ health decline over the years, knowing that I had this thing that they can use. But until they asked about it; itโ€™s not like I was hiding it. Right? I was pursuing a career in this. I was writing about it. I was talking about it. If anybody ever asked a question, I would happily explain why I personally made the decisions I made. I was very careful not say why others should do it. But I was careful to talk about why I made these decisions for myself. Here’s my personal experience. And my plates would look different when weโ€™d go out to eat. I would ask for corn tortillas instead of flour, and the corn tortillas were delicious. Right? I just started making small little changes. And I would ask for, if I was getting a margarita, I would ask for a margarita made with real lime juice instead of mix. It tasted better anyway, and that way Iโ€™m not getting the neon colored chemicals that are in the mix stuff. People start to see the way you live, and seen that it’s not difficult. And that was the way I could inspire my family members. But Iโ€™d never ever sat them down and said, this is the why you should do it. And if I had done that, I guarantee you it would have pushed them away and it would have delayed them maybe coming into this world. Or if it didnโ€™t delay it, they would have entered it with more resistance and maybe even some resentment towards those changes, instead of a very powerful, empowering experience that was possible for them.

So, having said all of that. I had no idea how long this episode would take. {laughs} I didnโ€™t know if it would take 15 minutes or who knows how long. So Iโ€™m going to go ahead and get to the marks of convincing versus the marks of inspiration. And this is true, like I said, not just for health and wellness, and when it comes to nutrition and maybe even physical fitness, right? We all get those things that weโ€™re very excited to talk about. Some of us feel very strongly about strength training. And we want to tell everybody why they should be doing more strength training. Or we get very excited about yoga, and why everyone should be doing more stretching and flexibility and mobility exercises. We get very excited about; oh gosh, what are the other things? Essential oils, is something people get very excited about. โ€œWell you should just rub whatever on your temples.โ€ Right? And instead of talking about, โ€œWell, when Iโ€™m in that situation, these are the things that I use, and this is why I decided to use them.โ€ Ok? Or when it comes to safer skin care. Same deal.

Ok, so. Marks of convincing. What are the signatures? And this is just kind of a self-audit, self-awareness exercise. And you guys, I am not saying that Iโ€™m perfect in this. Iโ€™m absolutely not. I definitely find myself tripping around in the convincing world every once in a while, but I do my best, when I catch myself, to stop, apologize very directly. To own it immediately to that person. And then redirect. OK. So what are the marks that you might be convincing somebody; trying to convince them. Number one, a very classic mark, is that you find that the person you’re talking to starts to tune you out. Or they stop participating in the conversation quite as much. You find yourself talking at them more than talking with them. Ok? That is a typical body behavior when you’re trying to convince somebody of something. Another thing is maybe on a casual sense, maybe they stop calling you back. Because every time they talk to you, or they sit down with you, or they have coffee with you, you have an agenda in mind that you’re trying to convince them of, and they don’t want to be around that anymore. Maybe theyโ€™re trying to be polite and not tell you; โ€œI don’t want you to convince me of these things.โ€ It can be a difficult conversation for folks. So that could be a mark of it, as well. If they stop calling you back. Or they’re less excited to spend time with you. It could be that youโ€™re trying to convince them of something. Whether you’re meaning to do it or not. You could be coming across in much more of an authoritative tone that you really may intend.

Number two, or three, excuse me. Number three. You are leading with a โ€œyou shouldโ€ statement. OK. That is signature convincing. โ€œYou should stop eating conventional dairy.โ€ I donโ€™t know, I just came up with an example. Whatever it is. โ€œYou should stop using Cetaphil on your face.โ€ โ€œYou should stop using Head and Shoulders and switch it out for something safer, because you don’t know what kind of hormone and other endocrine disruptors you’re putting on your skin that are going to be a part of your body, that if you ever decide to have children will become a part of your children’s body. Theyโ€™re found in the cords.โ€ Yadda, yadda, yadda. What an overwhelming statement and blanket to just throw on somebody, right? If you’re leading with โ€œyou shouldโ€™sโ€, your definitely not inspiring them. You’re working to convince them.

And lastly, a mark of convincing somebody, is that if you approach a conversation or the situation as if you personally have the missing link to their problem. Right? Youโ€™re looking them in the eyes, and youโ€™re thinking, โ€œOh, just wait. Just wait. I have something that’s going to make your life so much better. Iโ€™m going to tell you about it, itโ€™s going to make your life better, and you’re going to go and do it, and you can thank me for it later.โ€ That is the mark also, thatโ€™s background motivation for trying to convince somebody of something. Maybe you really want the best for them. Maybe you really want them to stop putting toxic chemicals on their face. And maybe you really want them to get to the bottom of their health problems. Maybe you really want for them to maybe potentially go off some of these major medications, because they did finally heal themselves with diet and lifestyle. But just because you want that for them does not give you the right to determine that they need to do the things that youโ€™ve said that you need them to do. OK? So have some self-awareness. And if you find yourself in one of those situations; man, I do I sometimes; usually Iโ€™m most guilty with my closest friends, truly my family members. Iโ€™m thinking of my sisters right now. In anything. Even if it’s not diet and health and lifestyle related. If Iโ€™m just talking about business. Both of my sisters are entrepreneurs, I think itโ€™s just in our blood. But when Iโ€™m talking to them about stuff, if I pause and I say, โ€œYou should handle the situation this way,โ€ is my inclination. Iโ€™m their older sister; man, and sometimes it’s hard to shake that old sister vibe where you want to tell them what to do because you know best. What I do is if I find myself saying those things, I stop and I say; I’m thinking of Kimberly, my sister Kimberly, who is a fabulous person. Sheโ€™s doing a phenomenal job running her music career. And if sheโ€™s confessing something to me, or struggling with something, sometimes I get caught up in wanting to give her a solution to her problem. And I say, โ€œWell, what you should do, Kim, is this.โ€ And as soon as I hear myself say the โ€œshouldโ€ word, I stop and I say, โ€œI’m so sorry. That was so rude. What do you think is the right thing to do?โ€ And I just sit there to listen to her. At the end of the day, she brought it up because she wanted to be listened to. She didnโ€™t want to be talked at. Unless she asks for advice. And if she asks for advice, the way I then word it, โ€œWell if I were in that situation, I would probably do xyz.โ€ Right? Itโ€™s a totally different tone. And I’m presenting it in a way where she can take with it what she will. Right? She can do with it whatever she wants. And Iโ€™m not getting my feelings hung up on whether she accepts my advice or not. OK. So the marks of convincing.

Now, the marks of inspiration. And I apologize if this is a little bit more of a disorganized episode, but gosh darn it, I just had to get it out there. Ok, so the marks of inspiration. This is the good stuff. This is the really fun part. So, marks of inspiration. Just kind of like I was talking about with my sister. Number one; you probably are asking more questions than giving answers. Right? So you’re trying your best to be a good listener is the mark of inspiring somebody. Doesn’t that sound backwards? Because when youโ€™ve got an agenda, and youโ€™ve got something that you want somebody to understand, it probably goes against every fiber in your body to sit there and ask them questions and to just listen without wanting to cut their answer off, and be like, โ€œWell let me just go ahead and tell you what I think you should be doing.โ€ Right? That’s difficult. That takes some serious restraint. But you can do this. I have faith in you!

Number two; the mark of an inspirational conversation is you share your personal experience and you label it as such. Right? So my personal health transformation story was my personal health transformation story. That was just my journey. That does not mean that somebody else in the exact same situation is going to do the exact same steps as me and find the exact same successes. Itโ€™s going to look different for them. The way they think is different. The way they look at the world is different. The minute decisions theyโ€™re going to make along the way are going to be different. And theyโ€™re going to wind up in a slightly different place than I did. And thatโ€™s going to be great, because it’s going to be theirs. Right? So share your personal experience.

You know, when it came to the safer skin care conversation; why did I make the changes that I made? I made the changes that I made because I got to a point where I decided; oh my goodness! I’m putting all this effort into the food, making sure that the food on my plate is really healthy and high quality, and Iโ€™m paying no mind to the products that Iโ€™m slathering all over my body. Right? And my skin is my largest organ, and I just had this moment where I went, โ€œWell Iโ€™m really not being very consistent in the way Iโ€™m deciding my total healthy lifestyle.โ€ Or the way Iโ€™m making decisions in my healthy lifestyle. So I decided to make some changes. And I decided to jump in and join Beautycounter because I loved their mission. And I decided to do all of these things, because that’s just the way that I saw is a really great option for me. It felt like a good fit for me. But do you see how I keep saying โ€œfor meโ€? And this is just what I did? That’s how you just tell your story without making it seem like you’re trying to impose your story on somebody else.

Number three; mark of an inspirational conversation. You are open to and maybe even encouraging of the idea that there are other ways and other solutions out there that are different from the one you are talking about. Right? And how do you become aware or open to those other ideas and solutions? Is you ask questions. You ask that person more questions than you give them answers. Right? Let’s not be so dogmatic about our own experiences. What worked for us is not necessarily gospel for others. And thatโ€™s the beauty of the world. Weโ€™re all so different, and our experiences, and the way that we think about things. And the way that we are personally going to be inspired is going to be equally different, right? I didnโ€™t sit down with my mom when we were trying to design her healthy lifestyle plan; I didnโ€™t sit down and come in and say, โ€œIโ€™ve got your solution. We’re going to have wine, weโ€™re going to have cheese, but you’re going to be paleo otherwise.โ€ I did not just give that to her. She came up with that unique solution. And because she participated in it, it was so much more effective than if I had just told her, โ€œGive it all up.โ€ Or, โ€œWeโ€™re going to wean you off of all of those things over time.โ€ Right? No. It was her decision. She was in it. So be open to their ideas of the solution. Ask them questions. Keep asking questions until they arrive at their own solution.

And lastly, this might feel a little woo-woo, but it’s applicable for when you’re talking to close friends and family members. But make sure when you’re trying to have an inspirational conversation with somebody that your love and your compassion for that person outweighs your agenda. And you need to make sure that that’s obvious. And you do that by being a really good listener. You do that by saying, โ€œI hear you.โ€ You do that by not saying, โ€œWell let me tell you what I think you should do.โ€ Because that doesnโ€™t show a lot of compassion. That doesnโ€™t show a lot of deep caring. That doesnโ€™t show a lot of trust for that other person, either. Itโ€™s essentially as if you’re telling that person, โ€œI donโ€™t actually trust you to make this decision correctly without me tell you what to do.โ€ So you just keep asking them questions as a good friend would. As a good daughter would. As a good sister, wife, husband, would. You just ask questions and encourage that person to get to their own solution. And you living the example; you living your example is the only thing that you truly have control over. Right? You making good decisions in your life, acting out in the way that you feel is best for you is the only thing that you should {laughs} right? Iโ€™m doing it. I’m doing it. Iโ€™m convincing. Is the only area where we really have the ability to have ultimate control, is over our own lives. We don’t have control over other people. And we’re fooling ourselves when we think that we do. Right?

So how do we inspire folks? We live our best lives. Weโ€™re not obtrusive and try to put our goals, our agendas, and what we believe are truths on other people. We don’t try to put those out there in a convincing manner. We just live our lives, and we become very good listeners. Patient, caring, compassionate listeners to those that are closest to us. So as much, clearly, I have very strong opinions about things. But when I’m talking with folks one on one, I do not lead with my very strong opinions. If somebody asks me a direct question, I’m happy to give them my direct answer. I don’t hide from it. But I donโ€™t lead with it. So that’s very important.

I hope you guys found today’s episode helpful. I find that the more of us that there are in this real food, paleo friendly, functionally fit lifestyle, safer skin care, all the great things that we are getting involved with nowadays. I think it’s just so important every once in a while to hit the pause button, do a self-assessment, and just determine if the way that we are living and the way they we are trying to inspire others is actually true to how they can truly be inspired. Right? And if we’re out there just trying to convince folks, we might find ourselves very exhausted, very discouraged, and turned down constantly. And there’s another way. Thereโ€™s definitely light at the end of the tunnel. It’s a very humble path. Itโ€™s a much more humble, and much more passive path than maybe we feel very comfortable with. But I promise; I promise that the path of inspiration, being a good listener, living by leading by your example, right? And giving that other person the opportunity to decide for themselves, and to design their own solution, that path, though it takes much more patience, and it takes much more self-restraint, is much more fruitful. I promise you, it’s much more fruitful. And you will come out big on the other side. A) You will be so proud of yourself; and B) you might just look back and see that those people made wonderful decisions for themselves, and you didn’t need to actually tell them what to do.

So thank you guys so much for dialing in for today’s episode. This has been a fun one of mine. I love mindset topics. As always, you can find a complete transcript of todayโ€™s show over at www.FedandFit.com. And that’s a great place, also, if you have any questions or requests for future episodes. I would love some ideas on topics. Please head over there, leave a comment on the blog. It would be most helpful. And as always, if you enjoy the show, it means a lot if you go over to iTunes; and what is it, what do they say on other podcasts? Rate, review, share? Something like that. I donโ€™t know about the sharing part; I donโ€™t know how to actually do that. I canโ€™t speak to it. But it would be really helpful if you left a review of some sort over on iTunes. It actually helps get the show in front of other folks. So thanks again so much for dialing in, you guys. I wish you a wonderful, wonderful week. Get out there, do some wonderful inspiration. Rest easy, know that everything’s going to be fine, and living by example is the most powerful way you can actually have a positive impact on the world. I wish you the best. Have a great week.



About the Author

Cassy Joy Garcia, NC

Cassy Joy Garcia, a New York Times best-selling author, of Cook Once Dinner Fix, Cook Once Eat All Week, and Fed and Fit as well as the creative force behind the popular food blog Fed & Fit.


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