2:00

It's basically where

2:02

you feel stable, you

2:04

feel steady, but also

2:07

you're unchallenged. And

2:09

most people are living inside their

2:11

comfort zone on a day-to-day basis.

2:13

We're going to a job every

2:16

day that we know. We know pretty

2:18

well. It kind of feels routine.

2:20

We come home. We

2:22

do the same routine things.

2:24

We're not really doing anything

2:26

that's scary or new

2:29

or drastically different because all

2:31

of those things feel very

2:34

uncomfortable. And

2:36

I think it's human nature to avoid uncomfortable

2:39

situations. Our brain is

2:41

designed to protect us.

2:43

So anytime anything is

2:46

even remotely anxiety inducing

2:48

or different or strange, our

2:51

brain floods us with a bunch of

2:54

chemicals that makes us want to retreat

2:58

and stay safe. And in

3:00

the wild, I feel like this

3:02

is an excellent defense mechanism. But

3:05

in the society and the

3:07

world we live in today, it can

3:10

also keep us really

3:12

small and stuck and

3:14

not learning or doing or trying

3:17

new things. When we

3:20

never really challenge ourself, how

3:23

could we possibly know what we're

3:25

capable of? And how can we

3:27

build resilience for when stuff really

3:29

gets bad? How

3:31

are we going to handle that if we're

3:34

so used to never dealing with

3:36

adversity? Okay, so I'm going to

3:38

start by sharing a little quick story with you.

3:41

Some of you guys

3:43

know recently I became

3:45

a volunteer firefighter. I'm

3:47

going to be totally honest with you. I

3:49

have no idea what I was thinking. I

3:52

have been volunteering for St. John Ambulance

3:54

for a few years. I became a

3:56

certified medical first responder. I really love

3:59

the education. I loved

4:01

the idea of being

4:04

there for someone in their

4:06

darkest time and being able

4:08

to help them, being able

4:10

to provide them emergency

4:12

medical care. It

4:15

felt right. It feels

4:17

right. It feels like something I should

4:20

be doing, and I wanted more of

4:22

it. So I thought

4:24

on a whim one day I could

4:26

be a volunteer firefighter in my community.

4:29

All the firefighters where I live

4:31

are all volunteer. They

4:33

do get paid. We do get paid, but

4:35

everybody has a regular

4:38

outside other job, and then everybody wears

4:40

pagers. And when there is an emergency

4:42

situation, the pager for the closest station

4:45

goes off. All the people who are

4:47

at that station get a page. And

4:50

if you are able to, you drive to

4:52

the station and then drive to the incident.

4:56

So I was like, this sounds amazeballs.

5:00

And everybody I talked to about it

5:02

said, listen, Cass, listen, listen, listen, listen.

5:05

You are 45. You

5:07

are in terrible shape. I mean, they

5:10

didn't have to say this. It's

5:12

pretty obvious. I'm not strong. I

5:15

don't work out. I

5:17

don't do anything like

5:20

that ever in my life, ever. But

5:25

I ignored all of that. I

5:27

didn't really even look into

5:29

what was involved. I just

5:31

applied and then went, took

5:33

the various tests, got

5:36

the job, and started doing the

5:39

training. The amazing

5:41

thing is the training is online

5:43

school. I have a big textbook,

5:45

so I'm reading, and plus I'm

5:48

doing the online school, and then

5:50

in-person classes for practical training. And

5:53

then we also do other training with

5:55

the fire department, like checking hoses, cleaning

5:58

fire trucks, learning about all

6:00

of the equipment. I

6:02

digress out

6:04

of my comfort zone. I

6:07

am a high school dropout. I

6:09

have not been to school since I was 15

6:12

years old. So going back

6:14

to school, taking school,

6:18

learning things, memorizing things, taking a

6:20

quiz and a test once a

6:22

week, that is outside

6:24

of my comfort zone. But I'm

6:26

actually really enjoying it. I love

6:28

learning. So that part I

6:31

was like, this is amazing. I'm

6:34

so glad that I did it, but it

6:37

gets bigger and crazier than that. The

6:39

physical, practical training on

6:41

the weekends is

6:44

completely kicking my butt. And I just want

6:46

to give you kind of a rundown

6:48

of what this looks like. And

6:51

then I want to talk about how this is

6:53

completely out of my comfort zone, the good, the

6:55

bad, the ugly that comes with that. I

6:59

have always been a person who's claustrophobic

7:03

and I am afraid of heights. I

7:07

know what you're thinking. Firefighter, okay,

7:10

claustrophobic afraid of heights. Let's keep

7:12

going. I also can't,

7:16

this is my limiting belief. I can't

7:18

lift heavy things nor do I lift

7:20

heavy things. I've been

7:22

married for a very long time. I've been

7:25

with my husband like 23 years. Anytime anything's

7:27

heavy or if there's any type

7:29

of like, have to pick up something or

7:31

do any type of physical labor. I'm like,

7:34

Oh, I got girly T-Rex arms. Oh, Joey,

7:36

I just girl, I just a baby. You

7:39

have to do it for me. So

7:41

I have avoided any type of hard

7:43

work or hard labor for

7:46

basically my whole life, but most

7:48

certainly since I've been married to

7:50

my husband, he does all that

7:52

type of stuff. And I'll go

7:55

a step further. I feel uncomfortable

7:57

parking in the garage and oftentimes

7:59

wants Joe to park. and then

8:01

back up the van for me

8:04

because I'm just uncomfortable with all

8:06

things uncomfortable. Okay,

8:08

so physical training. We get to

8:10

the fire hall. We

8:13

have to put on our equipment, our

8:15

PPE equipment, as fast as possible over

8:17

and over and over again. A

8:19

standard uniform, they

8:22

call it a bunker gear for a firefighter,

8:24

weighs 59 pounds. That

8:27

includes coveralls, boots, gloves,

8:32

a hood, your breathing mask, your

8:34

SCBA mask. So everything's not even

8:36

any skin covered. Your helmet, which

8:38

is heavy. We have an oxygen

8:40

tank that we have to put

8:42

on quite quickly. And of course

8:44

gloves. We're doing

8:46

this on the weekends. Outside it is 95 degrees.

8:51

And we are putting on this on

8:55

and off, on and off, on and off, on and off. So

8:58

we can do it as quickly as possible. And

9:00

I feel like with the mask

9:02

on and it's so heavy. And

9:04

then while it's on, we're doing

9:06

drills in full. So we're down,

9:08

we're crawling on our hands and

9:11

knees. We're army crawling. We are

9:13

dragging our equipment. We're quickly taking

9:15

our packs off and then

9:17

doing a three point, putting it back

9:19

on. We're doing search and rescue training

9:21

in the dark, looking for dummies in

9:24

smoke houses. When we find them,

9:26

we have to then completely

9:28

blind it because you can't see anything. Drag

9:31

these 175 dummies back out. And

9:35

this is just like intro learning.

9:39

And every step of the way,

9:42

I think there is no

9:44

way you can do this for even one more

9:46

second. Every second,

9:49

everything I do, I

9:51

think this is it, why? This is crazy.

9:54

This is so heavy. I'm so

9:56

exhausted. There's no way I can

9:58

do this. There's no way

10:00

I can do this and yet I

10:04

do it. So

10:07

last weekend was

10:09

the one thing I was super most scared

10:12

about and that is learning to

10:15

throw ladders, they call it, so raise ladders. You

10:17

pick up ladders, you carry it to the side

10:19

of the building, you raise it hand over hand,

10:22

you climb the ladder, you leg lock,

10:24

hang off the side of the ladder

10:27

and like axe, use

10:29

your axe and break open

10:31

windows, like pretend windows. Also

10:35

climbing up a ladder while carrying

10:37

another ladder over your shoulder while

10:39

also carrying in your other hand,

10:42

something called a pike pull in

10:44

full gear guys, full gear,

10:46

95 degrees, climbing up

10:48

on a roof, putting the

10:50

second ladder, we're just heavy as heck,

10:52

okay, on then climbing

10:54

on the roof, then

10:56

making sure it's sound with your pike

10:59

pull and then having your partner hand

11:01

you a chainsaw so

11:04

that while standing on this roof in

11:07

full gear, you can cut

11:09

holes in the roof to vent it.

11:14

I've never used a chainsaw in my life. I've

11:18

never climbed a ladder in my life. I've

11:20

never been on a roof in my life.

11:22

I've never lifted anything this heavy in my

11:24

life. I've never done this all at

11:26

the same time while being

11:29

so hot and sweaty and

11:31

soaked, I've never sweat, really,

11:35

not like this in my

11:38

life, never played sports, never experienced

11:40

any of this before. It

11:44

was the most challenging, insane

11:47

thing that I've ever done. And

11:50

I thought about quitting every second, every

11:54

second of that training. I

11:58

got in my car to leave. lift

14:00

heavy things, you

14:03

are capable of more than

14:05

you ever thought possible

14:08

because you went out of your

14:10

comfort zone. And I'm

14:12

not suggesting you all become volunteer

14:15

firefighters because crap is crazy. That

14:18

was probably a little bit more drastic.

14:20

This is very drastic out of my

14:22

comfort zone. But

14:24

also I have learned so

14:26

much, not only about firefighting

14:29

and tools and the mechanics

14:31

of smoke and

14:34

just so much about

14:37

medical things and just,

14:41

man, incredible amounts of knowledge in a

14:43

very short amount of time. But I've

14:45

learned so much about myself. I've

14:48

learned that I'm stronger both

14:50

emotionally and physically than I ever

14:52

thought I was. And

14:55

that I'm capable of doing big,

14:57

scary things. And that I'm rave.

15:01

That I don't run away when things are scary.

15:05

That I do stay calm under pressure. I

15:11

am so glad

15:14

that I'm doing this and

15:17

so glad that I'm going out of

15:19

my comfort zone and

15:21

doing things that I never thought I would ever

15:23

be capable of doing, let alone at 45 years

15:26

old. So I

15:30

also realized something else. The

15:32

Saturday night I came home and cried for hours. And

15:34

then I thought about all this. I went

15:36

back on Sunday and I

15:39

decided instead of always looking at myself and

15:41

my own struggles to look around at everybody

15:43

else who was also taking this training. And

15:46

what I saw was a 48 year

15:48

old paramedic who has been a paramedic for

15:50

the last 28 years and

15:52

decided he wanted to go above and beyond

15:55

and also become a volunteer firefighter

15:57

despite working full time. I

16:00

saw multiple 18 year olds

16:02

who were only one year

16:04

older than my daughter who

16:06

just graduated high school, who

16:08

are working full time at

16:10

jobs right out of school and who

16:13

are now doing this as well. And

16:15

they're terrified. I can see it in

16:17

their eyes. This no, yeah,

16:19

this is my first time on a roof carrying power

16:22

tools, but it's theirs too. These

16:24

are kids and they're doing it

16:26

and they're brave and they're excelling. And

16:29

I look at the guy who hit his

16:31

finger with an X during forcible entry training

16:33

a few weeks ago, showing up with a

16:35

cast on his finger. He's

16:38

23 years old. This is his dream. And

16:41

he's pushing through pain that no one else is.

16:43

And he's not complaining and he's doing it and

16:45

he's doing it with a smile on his face.

16:49

And I look around at all of them. So

16:52

many are married with families and kids

16:54

and everybody else has a full time

16:56

job too. Everybody

16:59

is coming from a different place and everyone

17:01

is struggling and we're

17:03

all dehydrated and we're all

17:05

sweaty and we're all scared

17:07

and we're all excited and we're

17:10

all a family. Sorry, I

17:12

got really emotional for a second there. My

17:16

mindset shifted from Saturday where

17:19

I was like, this is incredibly hard.

17:21

This is scary. This is, you should

17:23

not be doing this. Run quick, quick, quick.

17:25

This is horrible to Sunday

17:27

where I looked around and thought,

17:30

what a fricking privilege this

17:32

is that you get

17:35

to stand beside these

17:37

people and

17:39

do these incredible things and

17:41

learn these amazing skills and

17:44

have the opportunity to

17:47

serve your community and save

17:49

lives. Because

17:52

somebody's got to put the fire. So somebody's

17:54

got to show up to those car accidents.

17:57

Somebody's got to be there. And if all

17:59

of us say that is. too scary. I

18:01

can't. It's for someone else. There is nobody

18:03

to do it. And

18:08

that attitude that shifted my mindset,

18:12

I was like, I had a great time. I

18:15

loved every minute of that Sunday.

18:17

And maybe next week when I

18:19

do auto X training and I'm

18:22

cutting apart cars with the jaws

18:24

of life, which

18:26

are extremely heavy, or

18:28

I'm running into a

18:30

burning building. I

18:34

might have some panic and fear.

18:36

But I also know

18:38

that I'm capable. And then

18:40

I'm stronger than I ever thought I was.

18:42

And then I've got incredible people who have

18:44

my back that I can count on. I

18:50

went out of my comfort zone. I realized how

18:52

resilient I am. And I want to encourage you to go out

18:55

of your comfort zone again. I am not suggesting you run into

18:57

a burning building, friends. This is not

18:59

what I'm saying. What I am saying is you

19:01

are capable of so much more, so

19:05

much more than you know. You have

19:08

skills you

19:11

haven't identified yet. You are great at things that

19:14

you think you suck at. There are things you love more than

19:16

you ever could love. Think

19:18

you could

19:21

love doing something, but you just haven't

19:23

tried those things yet. You have passion

19:25

and purpose

19:29

that you have not yet discovered because

19:31

you're not going to find those things in your comfort

19:36

zone. So let's talk about

19:38

how to get out of your comfort zone. I have

19:40

a list of 15 things that

19:43

you can do, easy, simple things to

19:45

get out of your comfort zone. And

19:48

the first is try new food.

19:51

And I'm putting this on here because I used

19:55

to be a chicken nuggets and fries girl. My

19:58

whole life, like,

20:00

ew, that's yucky. I didn't want to

20:02

try new things. He was like meat,

20:04

mashed potatoes, spaghetti, maybe a taco, but

20:07

mostly chicken fingers and french fries.

20:09

The occasional burger, perhaps, and that's

20:12

about as adventurous as I would

20:14

ever get. Met

20:17

my husband. He was like,

20:19

yeah, let's go for Indian one night. I'll

20:21

never forget this Indian. And I had never

20:23

eaten Indian. I'd never even heard of Indian

20:25

food. We went to an Indian restaurant. To

20:28

me, it looked like some slop on rice.

20:31

And I was like, I'm

20:33

uncomfortable eating this. First

20:37

time I had butter chicken, never had anything

20:39

more delicious in my mouth ever. Chicken

20:41

korma, hands down, the

20:44

best thing. I

20:47

love Indian food so

20:49

much. It used to be my

20:51

favorite food. It was like I went from something that

20:53

was like, ew, that's so gross, to

20:56

what the heck, where have you been all

20:58

my life? This is amazing. Absolutely.

21:02

Put some garlic naan in there,

21:04

some basmati rice. Listen,

21:06

I would never have

21:08

known that had I not pushed myself and got

21:10

out of my comfort zone. The

21:13

same thing happened with sushi. I

21:16

don't like fish. I certainly

21:18

don't like raw fish. I

21:20

went to a sushi restaurant and I was so

21:23

uncomfortable. I was like, I can't eat this. This

21:25

is all disgusting. That's a heck no. My kids

21:27

were the same way. Thank

21:30

you very much. But

21:32

we tried some tempura shrimp.

21:35

We tried a California roll.

21:37

We tried a sweet potato

21:39

roll, cucumber avocado roll. Guess

21:41

what? My favorite food is

21:44

sushi. I still don't eat

21:46

the raw fish, but I will have

21:48

crab and they will have tempura fish

21:50

and it doesn't matter. I love sushi.

21:52

I love every kind of sushi roll.

21:54

I am here for it. Also, all

21:56

three of my kids, their favorite food.

22:00

My mom came to visit me last year and

22:02

I wanted to take her to a restaurant and

22:04

I took her to a sushi restaurant and she

22:06

wouldn't even try a piece. Wouldn't

22:10

try it out of her comfort zone. That's

22:12

disgusting, I can't eat that, I

22:14

hate that. And that is this

22:18

staying in your comfort zone,

22:20

staying small and missing out

22:22

on something really cool. My

22:26

two favorite things. My

22:29

two favorite meals in the whole entire

22:31

world. I also love Lebanese food. Try

22:33

new food, there, I said it. Be

22:35

adventurous with your food. Going on to

22:37

the next small thing that you can

22:39

do to get out of your comfort

22:41

zone, which is visit new places. And

22:44

yes, travel is an incredible way

22:47

to get out of your comfort zone,

22:49

but you can visit new places in

22:51

your hometown. Go

22:53

to a coffee shop that you've never been

22:55

to before or a bookstore or go to

22:57

a little art museum that you didn't even

22:59

know it was around. Just

23:03

do and go and see different things.

23:09

If every Friday night you're like, we watch the

23:11

same show, we eat dinner, we

23:14

sit on the couch, we do the same thing

23:16

every Saturday, maybe you do a little housework, you

23:18

do the same thing, same thing. What can you

23:21

do? Where can you go? That

23:23

is just like, you're like, I'm

23:25

probably not even gonna like this. This

23:28

is weird and I don't like art

23:31

museums, I don't like natural history museums,

23:33

I don't like going for walks in

23:35

the park, I don't like going

23:38

to coffee shops. Doesn't matter, you don't know if

23:41

you don't like it, if you don't try it.

23:43

And maybe you tried it a long time

23:46

ago, but you haven't tried it recently, you

23:48

still don't know if you don't like it

23:50

because you change. You were not the same

23:52

person you were five minutes ago, let alone

23:54

five years ago, you were always changing and

23:56

evolving and growing. You just

23:58

don't know because you don't give

24:00

yourself opportunity to realize how awesome

24:02

and how far you've come. So

24:05

get out of your comfort

24:07

zone and go visit a new place.

24:11

And I also got to mention learning something new.

24:14

Everything is always changing

24:16

around us. There's now

24:18

AI, there's always new

24:21

technology. It's crazy,

24:23

learn something new. You

24:25

could just watch things on YouTube or you

24:28

can take a course to learn something new,

24:30

something completely out of your comfort zone. My

24:33

grandmother's funeral is coming up this weekend and

24:36

we want to put photos on the big

24:38

TV that's at the hall that we're going

24:40

to. So everybody has photos

24:42

all over the place, right? Little, everybody

24:45

has photos on their different devices, whether it's

24:47

their computers or their phones or their tablets.

24:50

And I'm collecting all of them to put

24:53

them on a key or like a

24:55

little SD key to put them on the

24:57

television. So I sent everybody a Google Drive

24:59

folder. Just, I made a Google Drive folder

25:01

and I was like, you can drag and

25:03

drop the photos in here. Super, super easy.

25:07

None of my family knew how to use a Google Drive

25:09

folder. Didn't

25:11

know how to, my mom didn't know how to

25:14

drag and drop or copy and paste. My

25:17

uncle also wasn't aware. My aunt had

25:19

no idea, had no idea about this

25:21

type of text technology.

25:25

And I'm not saying this to shame them, but

25:27

what I am saying is watch

25:29

a YouTube video, learn

25:32

something new and it might seem

25:34

irrelevant. How to use Google

25:36

Drive, how to, I don't know,

25:38

use Canva, how to

25:41

use chat GTP. These

25:44

might seem like, why would

25:47

I need to know that? Why wouldn't

25:49

you need to know new things? Learning

25:51

new things expands your knowledge.

25:53

It makes your fishbowl a little

25:56

bit bigger. And

25:59

we're gonna talk about fishbowl. at the end of this. And

26:01

the really negative

26:03

thing that could happen when

26:06

you don't realize you don't know

26:08

what you don't know. When you're just

26:10

swimming with the same fish in the same

26:13

fishbowl your whole life, you're missing out on

26:15

the great big sea around you. So

26:18

learning something new is a great way of

26:20

getting out of your comfort zone. Number five

26:22

of things you can do is try

26:25

something adventurous. Like

26:27

try something a little bit scary. Doesn't

26:31

have to be chainsawing a roof scary while

26:33

the building's on fire. But it can be

26:36

going on a roller coaster when you've always

26:38

told yourself you hate roller coasters. It

26:41

can be, I don't know,

26:43

like doing that that

26:46

treetop adventure type things where you're

26:48

you're locked into a harness and

26:50

you're going across like, you know,

26:52

zip lines and and going across.

26:54

It's safe. It's safe doing a

26:56

little like, I don't know, wall

26:58

climbing, mountain climbing thing. You don't

27:03

got to jump out of a plane to

27:05

be a little bit adventurous. Do something that

27:07

is a little bit scary.

27:12

Even going for a height. Make

27:14

sure you're doing things safely. But

27:17

yeah, a little bit of fear is not a bad

27:19

thing. It really isn't.

27:22

And what's going to happen is you're going

27:24

to be actually quite proud of yourself for

27:27

doing it. You're going to get a whole

27:29

bunch of like dopamine and serotonin because you've

27:31

done this really exciting thing. You're going to

27:34

have incredible story to share. And you're

27:36

really going to realize that you

27:39

are capable of doing more than

27:41

you ever thought possible. The sixth

27:43

thing I wish everyone would do

27:45

is volunteer. Volunteering

27:48

is dying. It

27:51

just is. Nobody's volunteering

27:53

anymore. And I don't know if it's a combination.

27:56

It's probably a combination, but I don't know if

27:58

it's because everybody's just so good. busy

28:00

now that they don't have time to

28:02

volunteer for charities, volunteer in their community,

28:04

help out other people without receiving anything

28:07

back, or if it's just

28:10

the world's gotten a little bit more selfish. It's

28:13

probably a combination of those things. But

28:17

you've probably noticed if you go to church that

28:19

less people go to church. But I've certainly

28:21

noticed I used to work for

28:23

charities, the Lung Association, United Way, and

28:26

everyone who volunteered was older than 60.

28:29

And with the aging

28:34

population, there's just less and

28:37

less young people getting involved

28:39

in their community. But

28:41

we still need people to be involved in

28:43

the community. We need them to run these

28:45

amazing events that we want to do. We

28:48

need them to provide services. We need them

28:50

to keep the community safe. We need people

28:52

to volunteer because it's

28:54

all about the greater good

28:57

of our community. We

28:59

have to help each other out. It

29:02

takes a village. We all have

29:04

to be there for

29:06

each other. And that means sometimes

29:08

giving a little bit of our

29:10

time to make

29:12

the world a better place, to

29:14

leave it a little bit better than we

29:16

found it. And you don't have to volunteer

29:18

for hours and hours a week. But you

29:20

can volunteer at the next Terry Fox Run.

29:24

You can volunteer at the

29:26

next whatever event is going on

29:28

in your community. You can volunteer to tutor

29:30

a child that needs help learning to read.

29:34

You can volunteer with St. John

29:36

Ambulance and learn CPR and be

29:38

able to protect someone and help

29:40

someone and save a life perhaps

29:42

if someone in your community needs

29:44

medical assistance. There's so

29:47

many ways that you can give a

29:49

little bit of your time and make

29:51

a big impact. But more importantly, I

29:53

think that even all that great stuff

29:56

is it really allows

29:58

you to grow. It

30:02

really improves your self-esteem. It makes

30:04

you feel good about your

30:07

contribution to society. It makes you

30:09

feel fulfilled. It gives you purpose.

30:12

It's just as good for you as

30:15

it is for the people you're helping.

30:19

So think about volunteering

30:22

today. Number seven is something that I

30:24

need to work on, and that is

30:26

talking to a stranger. So

30:28

a really great way of going

30:30

out of your comfort zone is just

30:32

doing things that make you incredibly uncomfortable,

30:35

like striking up a conversation with the

30:37

person in front of you at the

30:39

grocery in the line of the grocery

30:41

store. I'm not good at talking to

30:43

people. I have social anxiety, but I

30:45

think a lot of people have social

30:47

anxiety. And now most of

30:49

the time when we communicate with other human beings,

30:52

it's through a screen. We're texting them. We don't

30:54

even call on the phone anymore. And

30:57

it's really hard to make new friends when

31:00

you're not talking to strangers.

31:03

So be the brave

31:05

one who talks first. Introduce

31:08

yourself to someone, a neighbor. Just

31:11

start a conversation with a stranger. And

31:13

I know it's hard, but being

31:16

out of your comfort zone is supposed to be

31:19

hard. That's the whole point. I

31:21

threw in number eight here because

31:23

this is scary, but also something

31:25

that I think everyone should try.

31:27

And that is filming themselves. And

31:30

I know I'm a YouTuber, so I've been doing

31:32

this a really long time, but I

31:34

talk to a lot of people who say, I

31:36

would love to make TikToks

31:39

or make a reel or share

31:41

a great tip with the

31:43

world, but I'm uncomfortable being on camera.

31:47

I would encourage you to just give it a try. You

31:49

just pick up your phone and

31:51

film yourself doing something. You don't ever have

31:53

to post it. That's not what I'm saying.

31:56

I mean, that's going to be the next

31:58

thing, which is posting something on online. I

32:02

digress. Just filming yourself

32:05

though. One little, we'll

32:08

make one little video just for fun for no other

32:10

reason other than you want to give it a try

32:12

and see what it's like. And it's going to be

32:15

scary and it's going to be uncomfortable. But you

32:18

might surprise yourself, you might find out that you

32:20

really love it. You might

32:23

be a YouTuber a year

32:25

from now with a million subscribers,

32:28

because you pushed yourself to try

32:30

something new. So yeah,

32:32

there. The one is

32:35

film yourself. The other is if you're super

32:37

brave to post it on the internet, you

32:39

can even post it anonymously. But putting yourself

32:41

out there with

32:44

coming from a place of like, I

32:46

really want to help somebody I really

32:48

want to make a difference. I really

32:50

want to teach somebody something cool. I

32:52

know. It's an amazing feeling, but it

32:54

is scary. It's super scary. But you

32:56

could do scary things. You

32:59

just might find that you're great at it. And

33:01

you love it. Number 10 is

33:03

really easy, but also uncomfortable.

33:06

But it can be amazing. And

33:09

that is change your look. dye

33:11

your hair red. cut your

33:13

hair completely by an

33:15

outfit that you wouldn't normally

33:17

wear. Change

33:20

your look. If you never wear

33:22

makeup, maybe try a little bit

33:24

of makeup. If you always

33:26

wear makeup, maybe try changing it up a

33:28

bit. This is a small

33:31

thing that we can do that actually

33:33

has a big impact on our confidence,

33:36

unless it goes bad. But even then, we got

33:39

nothing to lose. Literally nothing

33:41

to lose hair grows back, we

33:43

can dye it a different color.

33:47

What are you scared of? Number 11 is have

33:49

a Yes

33:51

day. I don't know

33:53

if you've seen that movie. It was like, I

33:55

think it's called Yes day, where the parents were

33:58

not allowed to say no to their children for

34:00

an interview. entire day, like, they had to say

34:03

yes to absolutely every single thing. I think

34:05

maybe this is slightly

34:07

drastic because my kids would be like,

34:09

let's go to Disneyland. So you need

34:11

rules, right? And boundaries. But the idea

34:13

of a yes day is actually

34:16

pretty cool. And something

34:18

I want to try with my kids coming up.

34:21

I, I'm a person who

34:23

tries to always say yes to new opportunities.

34:26

Even if I think they're weird, or I don't think

34:29

I'm going to like them, because all the things

34:31

that I've really discovered that I like the most, and

34:34

that I enjoy doing have all

34:36

been things that I've wanted to say no

34:38

to in the beginning. That

34:40

I'm like, I trivia night, I

34:43

am stupid. I have a terrible memory. I

34:45

suck at trivia. So the first time my

34:47

friends asked me to join them for a

34:49

trivia night, I was like, nah, I can't

34:51

do that. But then I thought, I can't

34:54

say no, I got to say yes, I got to

34:56

say yes more. I got to go over my comfort

34:58

zone. Now, trivia night is literally one

35:00

of my favorite things to do. Playing

35:02

board game nights with them. Love

35:05

that I used to be a person like

35:07

board game is for nerds. Guess what? Giant

35:09

nerd right here. Love board games. We

35:12

do this event called a road rally, where

35:14

we dress up in costumes, decorate our car,

35:16

and drive around looking for clues as a

35:19

big race against a bunch of other people

35:21

and the first person to find the final

35:23

place wins. I

35:25

did not want to I'm like,

35:27

that is no thank you. Guess

35:29

what? Love the crap out of that.

35:33

Yep, first friends. Say

35:35

yes, the things. If

35:39

a friend asks you to go do

35:42

something that you don't want to do with them.

35:44

Yes, I will. I will

35:46

give it a try. I will

35:49

try thrift store shopping with

35:51

you. I will try antiquing.

35:53

I will try whitewater rafting.

35:56

Say yes. Say yes. yes

36:00

to things. Just might

36:02

find out. They're your favorite things

36:04

to do. Number 12 is super ridiculously

36:06

easy, but also somehow

36:09

kind of hard. And that is

36:11

listen to different music. I'm

36:13

going to tell you the truth. I've always

36:15

said I hate country music. I can

36:17

listen to any music, but I hate

36:20

country. And I've avoided listening to country.

36:22

Like I hate country. I hate country.

36:24

I hate country. I was driving

36:26

home from the firefighter thing

36:28

on Saturday, crying my eyeballs

36:30

out the

36:32

whole way. Oh, I cried. I was so emotional.

36:35

And, um, so I wasn't really paying attention to what

36:38

was on the radio and somehow it

36:40

got to the station called 88.7, which used to be alternative

36:44

rock. So it used to be one

36:46

of my favorite stations. It was like top 40 or whatever.

36:49

And so I have it programmed, but

36:51

now it recently became country. So whenever

36:53

I turn my radio on and back

36:56

off sometimes, because that's like, it's called

36:58

present or whatever. Number one, like it's

37:00

a preset. It's probably preset anyways, not

37:03

the point. It's number

37:05

one. When I go switch from my

37:07

Bluetooth back to radio, it often

37:10

goes on this country station and I immediately turn

37:12

it. Cause I'm like, I hate fricking country. It's

37:14

horrible. But anyways, I was driving and I'm like,

37:17

I'm like bopping my head like, Hey,

37:19

this is actually, I

37:22

actually like this after

37:25

I was crying. I

37:27

didn't change the station. I was like, I'm going to

37:29

listen to this all the way home. And guess what?

37:31

I really enjoyed it. And

37:33

I thought, do I like country now?

37:36

I'm a person who likes nineties hip hop

37:39

rap. So this is a stretch. This is

37:41

out of my comfort zone. And then I

37:43

thought, is this because I'm getting old, but

37:45

also it was really good music. And I

37:49

gotta give this a chance. Maybe

37:52

it's that I like

37:54

lots of different kinds of music and maybe I've

37:57

been missing out. And maybe I like.

38:00

classical music and maybe and maybe

38:03

I don't have to have these hard rules of what

38:05

I like and what I don't and I gotta just

38:07

try new things. I want

38:09

you to think about what kind of music

38:11

you think you hate and

38:14

I want you to actually give it a

38:16

chance and listen to it. 14

38:19

is hard. It's learn a musical instrument but

38:21

hear me out and I know we all

38:23

want to learn a musical instrument but it

38:25

can be expensive because you got to buy

38:27

the instrument and you probably need lessons and

38:29

it's like oh man this is

38:31

all like when it's hard but

38:34

what about a kazoo? What

38:36

about a harmonica? What

38:38

about spoons? You got

38:41

some spoons in your kitchen. What

38:43

about just watching a YouTube video

38:45

and like you

38:47

know I don't know trying

38:49

to learn to whistle or something. You don't

38:52

know until you know. You could be like an expert

38:55

spoon player. This could be your hidden talent

38:58

that you didn't even know you had because

39:00

you thought it would be weird or you

39:02

haven't even thought to ever think about trying

39:04

it. My daughter when she

39:06

was nine loved Grace Vanderwall.

39:10

We had watched her and and she had

39:12

won like America's Got Talent or something and

39:14

my daughter was like I want a ukulele

39:16

so we picked her up a really cheap

39:18

inexpensive ukulele and that was her Christmas gift.

39:21

She taught herself to play a song that

39:23

day, continued to play, taught

39:26

herself with YouTube an

39:30

amazing ukulele player. From

39:32

that she taught herself to play guitar,

39:34

bass guitar. She can play piano. She

39:36

can learn it all by ear. I

39:39

don't know she's like some sort of musical

39:41

savant. It's

39:45

like what? But

39:47

if we had never gotten her that little ukulele

39:50

she never would have known and

39:53

my other children tried it. It wasn't their

39:55

jam. That's cool. But if we

39:57

don't try How

40:00

do we know? And last but not

40:02

least, I want to encourage you to

40:04

create a vision board. Sometimes

40:07

I think the

40:10

most uncomfortable

40:12

thing is dreaming,

40:16

allowing yourself to

40:18

dream big and have big goals, allowing

40:21

yourself, giving yourself permission to

40:25

say, I think I'm capable of

40:27

this big thing.

40:34

It's hard. It's hard to have

40:36

that kind of self confidence or even fake that

40:38

kind of self confidence. But

40:41

maybe you want to be an astronaut.

40:46

That's a big stretch. Maybe you want to

40:48

own your own business. Maybe you want to

40:50

be a YouTuber or a podcaster. Maybe you

40:52

want to have a spotlessly clean house. Maybe

40:54

you want to have a bigger house. Maybe

40:56

you want to travel

40:59

the world. Allow

41:01

yourself to really dream big and go

41:04

a step further and put it on

41:06

a vision board because a vision board

41:08

means this is a goal I'm going

41:11

to achieve. This is a goal I

41:13

know I'm going to achieve.

41:17

Give yourself permission to have

41:19

faith in yourself because

41:22

you are capable of big, incredible,

41:25

amazing things. When

41:28

you go outside of your

41:30

comfort zone and give yourself

41:32

permission to truly dream and

41:34

permission to believe in

41:37

yourself, challenge

41:40

yourself. You

41:45

have no idea how

41:48

far you can go. But

41:51

it starts with getting out of

41:53

your little fishbowl. And

41:56

what I mean by your fishbowl is

41:58

the people that you as a associate

42:00

yourself with every day that you're always

42:02

around. Oftentimes,

42:06

you only know what they know, and

42:08

they only know what you know. And

42:11

it kind of keeps you small. Same

42:13

circle of friend group, same circle of

42:16

family. I know

42:18

for myself, I thought that

42:20

I was one of the hardest working people that I

42:22

knew. I looked

42:25

around at friends and family and I thought, wow, I'm doing

42:27

a lot. And

42:29

I'm achieving a lot. I'm

42:31

a big fish in my little fishbowl.

42:35

And then I stepped outside

42:38

of my comfort zone and

42:40

met incredible people who are

42:42

doing insane things and realized

42:45

I ain't nothing. And I don't

42:47

mean that in a bad way

42:50

or derogatory way towards myself, but

42:53

in a way of realizing how much

42:55

more I could do and how much more

42:58

I could push myself. And

43:00

I thought I was doing as much as I possibly

43:02

could. But I added

43:05

this whole firefighter thing on and I'm, I'm

43:08

doing that too. And I'm

43:10

doing okay. And I'm

43:12

not failing and I'm not struggling. And I'm

43:15

not feeling crazy overwhelmed or stressed. And I'm

43:17

handling it. And I didn't

43:19

think that that could be possible.

43:22

And I'm working out

43:24

and I'm getting in shape and I'm

43:26

feeling strong. And I'm

43:29

associating with people who are in

43:31

a slightly bigger fishbowl. And

43:38

it's kind of awesome. So

43:40

I wanted to share this podcast with you

43:42

today just to give you a different perspective

43:44

and hopefully encourage you with these 15 things.

43:49

Eat some sushi tonight if you've never

43:51

tried it or go to an Indian

43:53

restaurant, visit a

43:55

place you've never been to, volunteer

43:57

for something, it can just be

43:59

one. singular event

44:01

in your community. Sign

44:04

up for a 5k. You don't got to

44:06

run it. Maybe just walk. Be

44:09

adventurous. Do something

44:12

out of your comfort zone. Thank

44:14

you so much for watching this podcast and

44:17

I'll see you guys next time.