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Welcome to episode 100, folks! This means I have been connecting with you for almost two years through this show, and I would like to thank each and every one of you for your support.

I would especially love to thank those of you who took the time to review The Life Coach School podcast on iTunes. And I want to remind those of you who haven’t done so yet, that reviews help this show to be seen by more people. So if you haven’t reviewed the podcast on iTunes yet, please take the time to do so by clicking here (or searching for The Life Coach School on iTunes).

As many of you already know, every 10 episodes, I talk about one of my teachers. And as I was trying to figure out whom to choose for the episode 100, I realized that I couldn’t think of just one person. So today, I decided to do an episode on the best lessons in my life.

Join us as I share the most important lessons I have learned until this day. From the ideas about my relationship with money and work to the epiphanies around thoughts, feelings, goals, and dreams, you’ll discover 25 most influential lessons that have shaped me into the person I am today. You won’t want to miss this insightful episode!

What you will discover

  • The important lesson I learned from my Mother.
  • My lesson about money.
  • My beliefs about work.
  • The lesson I learned about food.
  • The power of having less.
  • The relationship between thoughts and feelings.
  • How to ensure you dreams become a reality.
  • And much more!

Featured on the show

Episode Transcript

Welcome to the Life Coach School Podcast, where it's all about real clients, real problems, and real coaching. Now, your host, Master Coach Instructor, Brooke Castillo.

Oh my gosh, you guys. Check it out. It's episode 100 and I've completely lost my voice. I think it's perfect. I'm actually going to an event tomorrow where I'm supposed to be speaking as well. That should be very interesting. You can still hear me. It's just a different style to my voice. It's just me flirting with you a little bit, right?

Anyway, I am so excited about this episode. This is the one-hundredth episode, which means I've been at this almost two years now. I have connected with each of you 100 times, 100 weeks. I just want to say first and foremost, thank you so much for finding me and listening to me and supporting me because this has been a wild adventure. I really appreciate every single one of you and all of the comments you've made at the blog. I especially want to acknowledge each of you who have written me a review. I don't know if you guys know how much those reviews matter to iTunes, but the more reviews you have, the more they show my podcast to potential listeners. The more positive the reviews, the more they think it's good, which means the more people that we reach.

Let me just do a quick shout out to those of you who have been listening who haven't done a review, it's kind of a pain to do a review, but if you go to my blog, if you go to TheLifeCoachSchool.com and you go to the podcast, we have a link on how to do a review. I'd really appreciate it, not just for me and my ratings, but also for the people who haven't found me yet. If you've gotten some benefit from what I'm teaching, then offer that up for other people. I'd really appreciate it.

As you know, every ten episodes, I do an episode on one of my teachers. I was trying to figure out who is the ultimate teacher that I could put on episode 100. I couldn't think of just one. What I decided to do for this episode is do the best lessons in my lifetime. There are quite a few of them and I'm going to share them all with you here briefly. Hopefully, they are lessons that you have incorporated into your life. I have talked about many of them on the podcast. A few of them I haven't talked about before so I'm hoping that you will get benefit from hearing them here.

Let's start with number one. This is a lesson I learned from my mama. She always told me that you can do anything you want in this world. I believed her. I think that when we are kids, we believe what our parents tell us and because we don't have much of a choice, we don't have a frame of reference and we don't have much questioning ability. She told me that and taught me that and she was right. I really do believe that and I've always believed that because she taught me that. If that's something that you don't yet believe, you must put the effort into believing that you can do anything you want in this world. I think that our desires are our maps to our destiny. I don't think we're given desires or wants without the ingredients to fulfill them.

I'm talking about a genuine want. When people say to me, "Well, I could never play in the NBA." I say, "But do you really genuinely want to play in the NBA? Is that like some burning desire that you have within you?" People will say no. Pay attention to those burning desires and pay attention to what you genuinely want. Then, know for sure that you can absolutely have that if you want it.

Number two, “money doesn't make you happy.” My grandfather grew up very, very poor and was very successful in school and also very successful athlete. He played for Salt Lake City, University of Utah, I guess it was, in Salt Lake City. He was an All American amazing athlete and went on to play for the Detroit Lions back in the day. One of his football buddies and he started a business together where they were engineers and they manufactured diamond drill bits for oil rigs and had patented technology that was very successful and he ended up selling that business and doing very, very well for himself. He still was just a very simple man with very simple clothes and he liked to eat at Denny's, but he bought all of us stock in his company before he sold it. I grew up with plenty of money and my mom never had to work. She had plenty of money. As I've talked about many times here before, my mom was very depressed throughout my childhood and not very happy at all. I really learned that, yes, money was plentiful and abundant and also it did not have the ability to make you happy because my mom had plenty of money and was not happy at all.
I think for me knowing that, I didn't have to have money to be happy, was really kind of, it's contrary. I think there's a lot of people believe that if you have money, you will be happy. Now, what I believe is that money makes you more of who you are. If you're miserable, it can actually make you more miserable and if you're happy, it can help you express that happiness, let's say, more. But it can't take if you're miserable and make you happy. It doesn't have the ability to do that. Money is one of those things that is just a tool.

Number three is “rely on yourself.” That's another lesson that I learned as a child from my mom. She never wanted me to be dependent on anyone for money or for anything else. She always wanted me to be able to take care of myself and rely on myself and be educated and be able to go to work and do everything that I needed to take care of myself. I really genuinely took that to heart. I was one of those kids. I could not wait to go to work. I could not wait to be able to provide for myself. I got my first job, I think, when I was fifteen. I was working at Chevy's restaurant. Even before that, I was always working at the barn with the horses and taking trail rides and I developed a really strong work ethic when I was very young. I still have it today. I love working hard for everything because of the way it makes me feel. I love being able to rely on myself.

I know that no matter… if something were to happen, heaven forbid, to my husband, I would still be able to take of myself. If, for some reason, someone came in and took away all my money and my business and everything, I would still be able to rely on myself and rebuild all of that. It's not something that is external to me. I don't rely on money in the bank. I don't rely on other people to take care of me. I rely on myself and no matter what happens in the world, I can always utilize my brain and rebuild whatever I need. I think that's an amazing gift that I've given to myself.

Number four is right along those same lines, which is “work is good.” I love working. I love having a job. I love having a business. I love going to work everyday. I love the feeling when I accomplish something and I love the feeling of a hard day's work. I think that belief has served me so much in my life.

Number five, “no is the beginning.” I was always taught this through example is that often times, people would say, "No. There's no availability at this restaurant," or, "No. We can't do something for you." Instead of the people in my family saying, "Oh, okay," and walking away, we always tried to find another way. I think that when people tell you no even if it's a very sincere no, it may just be something that they don't know yet. I can't tell you how many times in my life not accepting no for an answer has made my life so much richer and so much better. Understanding where people are coming from when they tell you no and being willing to keep working towards the yes, I think, is life changing.

Number six is “food isn't the answer.” That was a lesson that was long and hard to learn and well-earned, I would say. I used to think food was the answer to everything. I used to daydream about dying and going to heaven and being able to eat fettuccine Alfredo all day and that being the ultimate in all things that could happen in life. I used to think that being able to eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted and not gain weight was the ultimate in anything you could ever want in your life, more important than anything else. I learned that that is not the case and that food is not the answer. Food is fuel for your body and other than that, it's a cheap substitute for life.

Number seven, “money is easy.” I think I learned this along the same time that I learned that money doesn't make you happy, ironically. I was one of those kids that when I asked my mom for money, she'd give me a $20 bill. She never told me that money didn't grow on trees. In fact, I pretty much thought it did. I don't think that's a bad lesson to teach your kids. It literally does. We always had money in our house. We always had money to pay for what we wanted. Money was never an issue. I grew up believing that it was easy. I don't think that made me entitled and I don't think it made me lazy. I don't think that giving people money and teaching them that it's easy does that.

I think that when money's easy, it makes it fun to go to work and make some of it. I was always able to make a lot of money very easily. I think part of it is because of believing that. I never felt like I had to work extra hard or in a painful way in order to earn money. What a gift that belief has been for me. I hope that I teach that to my children. I don't want to teach them that they have to work hard for money. I want to teach them that money is easy and that working hard is its own reward and that you don't just do it for money.

Number eight, “success is yours for the taking.” I learned this lesson, I think, when I went to work at Hewlett Packard. I was around a lot of people who were dependent on their bosses or their yearly reviews for their own success. I thought that was so silly. I thought if you want to move up in an organization, you should just find a way and do it. I never followed the rules. I got hired into a job that I had no business being hired into. I worked hard and I found out what was most important to the people I was working for and I delivered that to them and I wasn't afraid to ask questions and I wasn't afraid to show them what I had done and the work that I had done. I wasn't afraid to apply for positions that where nowhere in my experience level and I got them. I was able to move up in that organization very fast. I feel like I could have kept moving up. It wasn't something that I needed to wait for. It was mine and I went and I got it.

I still feel that way when it comes to my own businesses and the businesses that I've built. Success is just waiting for you to claim it. I really genuinely believe that and I think that's true for everyone. I think the only thing that prevents us from claiming success is our belief that it's not ours to take.

Number nine, “less is more.” I think I learned this lesson the most when I sold everything in my house and went on a trip around the country with my family. We sold everything and we got rid of everything in our house. We have since only added back in stuff that is essential or stuff that we love. We moved from an almost 5000 square foot house to a 2500 square foot house and we have more space in this house and less stuff than we did in our previous house. Haven't added to it. We're not cluttered. We don't have anything that we don't use all the time or anything that we don't love. It's a very minimalist way to live and it's really powerful because we don't have a lot of mess. We have a lot of space. We have a lot of room for each other and a lot of room for other things to come into our lives. I believe that that's true when it comes to clothes. I believe that it's true. If everything in your closet is something you absolutely love, you don't need a huge closet. You don't need room for all the stuff you don't love. You just need room for the stuff that you do. I love being able to look around my house and lay my eyes on everything in it as something that I love. In that way, less in my home has really translated into much, much more.

When we bought our house, my mom was like, "Oh my gosh. This house is so small for you guys. I don't think you're going to be able to really be comfortable here." She was absolutely wrong because if you only have the essentials and you make space there for all the essentials and utilize every space in your home, there's plenty of room. In fact, I think that we have more stuff now as a country, I think we have like twice as much stuff as they did a generation before us. We used to live in smaller houses with less stuff. I think in many ways, that simplified life is so much better.

The next one is “thoughts create feelings.” I'll never forget when I learned this one. It was a game changer. I'll never forget it. I had been learning a lot about food and I had been learning about emotional eating. I had been learning a lot about feeling my feelings. That's very important. What I realized is that I just felt crappy all of the time and I didn't understand why. When I learned the idea that my thoughts create my feelings, first I was a little bit angry. Like, "You got to be kidding me. How come nobody taught me this before?" I really mastered that concept when I studied the work of Byron Katie. She really taught me the truth of that and what that really means by giving me a tool to apply it in my life. I will always be thankful to her. I think that knowing that thoughts create my feelings has really also helped me take full responsibility for my life and everything that I feel. That has given me the power to create my own experience in my life. I will say, I put a little star next to that one. I think that's one of the most important lessons any of us can learn.

The next one is “a feeling is the worst thing that can happen.” Knowing that my thoughts create my feelings and a feeling is the worst thing that can happen is so, so reassuring. There's nothing out there that's the worst thing. It's what I'll make it mean and how I will feel and knowing that I have some control over that gives me freedom and so much empowerment. Even the worst thing that can happen, like for example, losing one of my children, having one of my children die, the worst part about that is not my children dying but what I would make it mean and how I would feel. It doesn't mean that it wouldn't be horrible. It doesn't mean that it wouldn't be awful, but the worst part of it would be the feeling and the feeling is something I can create. I can make it much worse or I can make it much better by what I can decide to believe about it. That is the only control we really have in this universe. The good news is I think it's the only control we need.

The next one is “I can't control other people.” What? That's such a hard one to accept. You can't control other people. Other people are allowed to behave anyway they want, even our children, even our parents. We can't control them. We can try. We can try to manipulate them. We can try and have them behave in the way that we want. We can't control that, at least not consistently and at least not predictably. The next best news is we don't have to. We only have to control ourselves. We don't have to control other people to affect how we feel. That's the best news.

The next one is “alcohol is completely unnecessary.” This is one that I've just recently learned, as most of you know who have been following along my journey. I just don't have room for it in my life anymore. I don't have room for the chatter about it. I don't have room for the decisions to make about it or for the way it makes me feel. It's completely unnecessary and I think that's a long-earned lesson as well and one that I'm super glad that I learned and that I'm on the other side of.

Number fourteen, “puppies make everything better.” I think really that's unconditional love, right? It's… puppies are just in the present moment, they're happy, they're loving, they're wonderful. I can't imagine my life without a dog. Mickey and Zorro, my puppies that we had from right before I had Christian, until just last year. We had those dogs for sixteen years and my life was so much better because I had them in it. We just recently got Rocket and Rory. My first dogs, Mickey and Zorro were dachshunds, and Rory and Rocket are Boston Terriers. They are the joys of my life.

I was trying to make a point to my kids the other day, so funny, and I said, "Hey, you guys." What I was teaching them is how they treat each other affects me, like because I love them so much. I was basically saying, "Hey, when you're mean to your brother, I love your brother so I'm all up involved in this in my head." The way that I approached that conversation is I said, "Christian," I said, "tell me. Who do I love the most in the world?" He said, "Rory." It was so funny. I'm so in love with that dog. Rory and Rocket are puppies and we spend a lot of time kissing them and oohing and ahhing over them and talking about their pink little lips and taking them on walks. I love them. I love puppies and I think that even if you don't have a puppy, just seeing one it's hard to not just fall in love with the puppy.

The next one, “my mom did her best, boundaries save relationships, and my mom is amazing.” I think my mom did her best was a really powerful lesson to learn and took me out of blame. I grew up taking responsibility for how she feels and learning how to set a boundary and not take responsibility for how she feels really saved our relationship. I'm really in a space where I can really appreciate her and the amazing person that she is and what she taught me and what she has done with her own life and what she survived and what she's created, in awe of her now and I don't think I would be able to do that had I not realized that she's done her best and if I had not set up boundaries.

The next one is “50% of emotions are negative and that's okay.” I don't have to be happy all the time. My goal in life is not always be experiencing pure bliss. If I'm not always experiencing pure bliss, it doesn't mean there's something wrong with me. That's just really fantastic to know.

Number seventeen is “you can practice your dreams until they come true.” What? I didn't know you could practice your dreams. I thought you had a dream and then you either achieved it or you didn't. I didn't realize you could practice it now and feel it now and experience it ahead of time. In fact, I didn't know that the more you practice your dreams, the more likely they are to come true. I'm going to be talking about that a lot more in the podcast, but that's just a really, really powerful thing to know.

Number eighteen is “you can make what you want effortless but you have to work at it.” We want being thin to be effortless. We want making money to be effortless. We want being kind to be effortless. It can be effortless but you have earn it. I've given that example of my student, Suzy’s son, learning that unicycle. Riding a unicycle can be effortless but you have earn it. You have to earn the right for it to be effortless. You have to put in the time for it to be effortless. You can't expect to jump from zero to effortless. You have to earn effortlessness.

Number nineteen, “brains need supervision and direction.” Your brain is just a tool and it does what it's told. If you don't deliberately tell it what to do, it will just do what it's always done and it will create what it's always created. In some ways, that may be a really good thing. In some ways, that might be really ill-advised. Recognizing that it needs supervision and direction is really important, especially on a daily basis.

Number twenty, “the more you give, the more you get.” There is nothing more true than that. I really do believe that the more I've given in the world and more I've given without expectation of something in return, the more I've given generously and freely with really no expectation, has brought me the most in my life. We have a rule that we never lend money, ever. We just give it. If we want someone to have money, we give it to them and we don't expect ever a repayment. We often pay for the Starbucks of the people behind us. We always pay the toll of the person behind us. The rule is you don't look back. The rule is you just give and you know it will come back to you. It probably won't come back to you from that same person, but it will come back to you. The more you give from a really genuine place and the more you give your best stuff from a really genuine space and not expect anything in return, you will get more back than you ever could have imagined.

Number twenty-one, “love is always an option and love is always the best option.” Sometimes I don't feel like love is an option. Sometimes I feel like only anger is an option or only frustration's an option or only exasperation is an option, but that's never true. Love is always an option. It's always available to us if we're willing to do the work to choose it. I'll tell you, I'm not always willing to do that, but I do remind myself that it always is an option and I love knowing that because love always feels the best, feels way better than exasperation or frustration with other people.
Number twenty-two, “my past was perfect.” My past was for me. It was if I have chosen it. I love knowing that because then I can love my past and I can stop arguing with it, which is, as Byron Katie would say, "It's an argument you're never going to win. You're always going to lose that argument with your past." If you can accept it as if you've chosen it, as Eckhart Tolle would say, then you can believe that it was perfect and for you. That is one of the best gifts I've given myself is not believing that anything in my past was wrong.

“What's meant to happen does.” That's true for everything, right? It's really similar with your past is perfect. I believe that we show up, we do our best, we give it everything we've got, and then what's meant to happen does. You can accept what's meant to happen and believe that the universe is benevolent and that it happens for you.

“Our thoughts literally create our reality.” I believe that. I believe that you can look at your life and believe that it's terrible and find the reality that it is or you can look at your life and believe that it's wonderful and find the reality that that's true as well. It's up to you. Not only that, what you choose to think will create your reality. I have so many of my students say, "I want to learn how to use my thoughts to create my reality." I say, "Hey, here's the best news: You've been using your thoughts to create your reality your whole life. You just don't like your reality. You just need to change your thoughts. You don't need to learn how to create your reality. You already know how to do that. You just need to learn how to create a reality that you actually want. In order to do that, you just need to change the way you're thinking."

Finally, number twenty-five, “everyone just wants to be loved.” Everyone. You can look at anyone in your life, anyone you think is powerful or successful, anyone that's miserable and angry, anyone that's happy, whatever it is, everybody just wants to be loved. As human beings, that is our innate desire. You always have the ability to give everyone something that they want, to love on someone, to give them what they want. If you believe that what you give, you get, then there's no reason why you shouldn't be willing to give love and feel love. Everyone just wants to be loved. That includes you and you always have the ability to love yourself. That's always an option for you.
Those are my lessons in my lifetime, the best lessons in my lifetime. If you guys have ones you want to add, please go over to TheLifeCoachSchool.com/100 and share yours with me. I'll share them on the podcast and we can talk about them some more.

I just want to offer to all of you how much I love you and how much I appreciate you listening. I'm really, really excited to do the next 100. This has been a wild ride this past couple years doing this podcast with you all. It's completely changed the trajectory of my business and I am really looking forward to seeing what the next two years will bring. Again, thank you so much. Please write me a review if you haven't. Let me know what your best lifetime lessons are. I can't wait to talk to y'all next week. Take care. Bye bye.

Thank you for listening to The Life Coach School Podcast. It is my honor to show up here every week and connect with people that are like-minded, wanting to take their life to a deeper level with more awareness and more consciousness. If you are interested in taking this work to the next level, I highly encourage you to go to TheLifeCoachSchool.com/howtofeelbetteronline. It is there that I have a class that will take all of this to a deeper application, where you'll be able to really feel and experience how all of these concepts can start showing up in your life. It's one thing to learn it intellectually. It's another thing to truly apply it to your life. I will see you there. Thanks again for listening.

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