Ep #250: Listener Lessons

Welcome to The Life Coach School Podcast, where it’s all about real clients, real problems and real coaching. And now your host, Master Coach Instructor, Brooke Castillo.

What? Can you guys believe it’s 250? Are you with me? Have you guys listened to 250 podcast episodes with Brooke Castillo? Holy cow, it’s very exciting.

So today, we have a very special treat for you. A couple episodes back, I asked you guys to share your favorite lessons that you learned on the podcast. And so many of you called in and left messages talking about what you’ve learned on the podcast and I’m super excited to share these lessons with each of you all, because some of you are new listeners, so maybe you haven’t gotten access.

And some of the people that called in were our Diamond Scholar members and members that have been with me for a long time. So I am super excited to share this episode with you, Listener Lessons. Because here’s the thing, the things I love the most aren’t always the things you guys love the most. So it’s really fun to see what are the things that have affected you in your life more than others.

And so this was really just a treat and a joy for me and I just want to say thank you all for listening to this podcast. There are literally millions of you, which blows my mind, millions of you who listen to this podcast. And I know, when I first started recording, nobody was listening, and now there’s just millions of people, and that just blows my mind. It’s so exciting and I’m just so thankful for you. Let’s have the most amazing next 250 episodes.

So let’s get started. The first post and call in was from Robert. He’s one of our Diamond members for Self-Coaching Scholars – just happens to be – and he talks about the thoughts that I taught him and gave him as optional thoughts to think and how much they’ve impacted him. And then he ends with a question that he asks himself that helps him in his life.

And so, I’m going to let him speak for it, but I just want to touch base on the question that he asks himself that I taught him to ask himself. He doesn’t really go into it in too much detail, so I want to offer it to those of you who maybe don’t utilize this, and it’s, “How can I support you?” Asking that question to yourself as if you’re the most important person in the world is one of the best questions that you can ask to you.

And he talks about three other thoughts that are super useful to think on purpose that will completely change your life. So enjoy Robert’s post.
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Hi, friends. This is Robert. I am a Diamond and I just want to share with you four things that I’ve learned that I love and I’ve heard you say and it’s just changed my life, depending on where I was at the moment. I’m saying this fast because I don’t want to run out of time.

The first one is, “Clean drinking water.” Whenever I feel I am down on myself, I just remember that I have clean drinking water and it puts it in perspective for me.

The second one is, “It’s all just for fun.” Whenever I feel the pressure in trying to achieve my goals, I just remember, I don’t have to do anything; it’s all just for fun and it puts it in perspective for me.

The third thing is, “It’s just math.” I love that. It’s life-changing for me. whenever I find myself feeling insecure about my business, I just tell myself, “It’s just math. It’s just the equation and I will get there.”

And the last thing is, “How can I support you?” I heard you say this and it blew my mind. Whenever I feel myself feeling like I need to just feel tired and not do my goals, I just tell myself, “How can I support you?” And I get it done.

So thank you so much. I really appreciate all of these learnings and I can’t wait to see what the next year brings. Love you, bye-bye.

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Okay, this next post is from a podcast listener. She doesn’t leave her name, but we will call the name of her post, Believe in Yourself. And I love the simplicity of this post for her; just the concept of believing in ourselves.

One of the things that I love to teach you all is that you don’t need anyone’s permission to believe in yourself, and you don’t need any evidence from your past to believe in yourself. Did you know that you could just believe in yourself? I think it’s so fun. I love that I can just believe crazy things are possible in my life and nobody else has to agree with me and no one else has to believe in me and I don’t have to prove it.

I can just believe it. That’s what my $100 million goal is, right, everyone? It’s like, I’m just believing in a goal that I have no evidence I can do and I have no – I should say I have no buy-in, but I actually now do have a lot of buy-in.

And I think the reason why is because I believe in it so hard. I believe in it hard, but I’ll tell you, everyone who knows me and loves me believes in my $100 million goal, but whenever I go out into the world, I can tell they’re like, “Oh, that’s cute, life coach, that you think you’ll make that much money.” It doesn’t matter to me at all.

So I love this post and I love that she’s believing in herself to go after her own dreams and that it doesn’t matter how long it takes her to achieve them, it’s better to go after them than to not. So please enjoy hers.
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Hi, Brooke, first off, I just want to say that I love your podcast and I’m so happy that I found you and I was having a horrible time at work when I found your podcast. It was around the end of February, early March, and I ended up quitting my job and I’m going back to school and I’m just like loving how it changed my life.

But I think the biggest thing, for me, was when you said that you need to believe in yourself. I can’t remember what episode it was. There’s so many good ones that I’ve listened to, but it was basically, you know, you can achieve anything if you just believe that you can do it. And it doesn’t matter how long it takes you, it’s just you putting forth the effort into doing it.

And it really made me think, I keep holding back on things I wanted to do, like school, because I’m like, “Oh, I’m probably not going to do it in the timeframe that other people can do it or I might be bad in a class and I’m never going to be able to pass or whatever.”

But I started thinking about it from the perspective of who cares if it takes 12 years to get a PhD or 15 years, as long as I’ve got it. At the end, where would I be if I didn’t go for that? I would still be in a job I hated and I would be doing something I didn’t want to do thinking, what if? And I totally changed my life. And I want to thank you for it. Thank you so much.
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Alright, you guys, this next one is going to touch your heart. I was sobbing when I was listening to it, so I’m just warning you. The title of this one is The Exact Parents You’re Supposed to Have. And I believe – and I have believed this for a long time and it’s completely set me free – that we have the exact parents that we are meant to have to live the life that we are meant to live.

And that’s a lot for me to say. My father was an alcoholic – very severe alcoholic – and he ended up dying of sclerosis. He literally drank himself to death. He was quite a neglectful father. He cheated on my mom incessantly. Lots of stories of abuse, lots of stories that other people would be like, “Whoa, nobody should have that parent.”

And yet, so many amazing things and funny things and love I have for him. It’s so powerful and it really helps me understand that whole 50/50 dynamic that we’re introduced to as humans.

And also my mom. I used to be so mad at my mom. I wanted her to be so different than she was. And I realize now how my relationship with my mom has helped me change so many thousands of people’s relationships with their parents and with themselves.

And so I see now, more clearly than ever, that I had the perfect parents to create the life that I’m creating right now, and had my parents been any different, I would be as good of a teacher. I wouldn’t be as strong of an independent thinker and I’m so thankful for them.

And this idea that we have, that parents should be a certain way, and yet no parents are that way, is so baffling to me. So, you guys, get ready. This is going to pull at your heart strings.
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Hello, my name is Julie Grange. Thank you so much, Brooke Castillo, for allowing us to share our thoughts and feelings. I’ve wanted to share something with you for quite a while.

Let me backup; when I was growing up, my mother and I did not get along very well in my teenage years. And we just had a pretty rotten relationship until I got married, and then I decided, I’m just going to try to figure out how to love this woman.

But there was always that stuff inside me that, like, had resentment and didn’t know how to get rid of it from how she treated me. I was in playing the victim mode. So anyway, then I heard one of your podcasts that said that our parents were the exact parents needed.

And then I knew how to get rid of all the resentment. It was a beautiful moment. It changed my life. In April, my momma passed away and because I heard that on a podcast over two or three years ago, when she passed, I was able to just rejoice in the fact that I had completely ridded myself of all the resentment and pain because of one little statement, a truth on your podcast that said we were given the exact parents that we were supposed to have. Love you, Brooke.
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Alright, I told you, right? Now, this next one – just keep your eyes wet because this one got to my heart as well. This one is from Melissa and she talks about really liking the tool of the future self and focusing on the future.

And this is actually one of my favorite tools as well. It’s the one that I spend, I think, the most time utilizing, is designing my current life from the future – making decisions from that future self. And making meaning of what’s going on today from that future place has made my life so much more enjoyable and so much more powerful and so much more exciting.

So for those of you who don’t know the tool, I’ll just summarize it here. You visualize what you’re after. You visualize where you want to be in terms of your goal and who you are once you’ve achieved that goal. How do you think? What do you do? How do you see the world? How do you interpret things differently once you’ve arrived at that place?

And I use the example a lot of me when I was wanting to quit drinking, and I would visualize my future self as someone who just didn’t care at all about alcohol. And I utilize the tool now for my financial goal of making $100 million in one year. I use it all the time when I’m making decisions in my business, when I’m making decisions financially; if I was already making $100 million a year, would I do this thing? And if the answer is, I don’t do it.

And if I was making $100 million a year, would I take the time to do this or that or the other? And it helps guide my life so clearly because the person that I am and the way that I think at that level is really what’s creating the result in my life. So listen to Melissa’s story. It’s pretty awesome.
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Hi, my name is Melissa Abrahamson. My favorite tool has been future self – like putting yourself in the place of where you’re going to be in the future and feeling it now, looking at it now. I get so ridiculous with it that, I mean, the most minute details, I imagine.

And since January, I have de-cluttered my home. I went from a size eight to a size two – I’m super short so it’s very healthy. And it’s just been amazing. And it’s like, I have a website that’s coming out, a launch this next weekend.

My life was just kind of on standstill. And I’m just so grateful that this podcast is available because I’ve just been able to see myself as someone that is killing it. And I’m doing that every single day and I cannot even tell you how grateful I am.

I so appreciate every single podcast because it has definitely helped me to enhance my life and enhance the lives of the people around me; my family, my friends, my clients. So I’m just really, really grateful, and thank you so much.
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Okay, I love this next one. This next one is from Rosie and she talks about two of the tools that I teach. One is massive action and the other is doing B-minus work.

So, just to remind you, massive action means you keep taking action until you get the result you want. How do you know that you’ve taken massive action? Not because of how much time you’ve put in, not because of how busy you’ve been, not because you’ve done a lot of things. Massive action is continuing to take action until you get the result you want.

And B-minus work is showing up and doing the work even though it’s not perfect and continually doing more and more of the work and the creative work and not constantly criticizing yourself and picking on yourself and not putting your work in the world because it’s not A-plus.

Rosie is a shining example of that. She’s a singer-songwriter and she is doing her work in the world. You can hear it in her voice. Good for you, Rosie. You guys, enjoy her story.

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Hello, my name is Rosie and I’m a singer-songwriter along with my husband, Biff. But I’m also a homemaker, so music’s taken the back seat for the last several years as I take care of my awesome family. But I’ve begun writing again and it’s been a little bit discouraging because my songs have been not so good.

But I was listening to your episode, number three on setting goals, and you were talking with a woman who wanted to be married. And you asked her, “Are you willing to go on 200 first dates?” And I thought to myself, am I willing to write 200 songs?

And I realized, yes, I am. And so I set another goal for myself, to write 25 of them during the month of September, because there’s bound to be some good ones in there, and I’m going to learn so much and grow so much as a songwriter by doing that. And then my husband and I set up a YouTube channel to share our music.

Now, YouTube is not the end goal for us, but it’s a place that we can share our B-minus quality home recordings – which is something that I learned from 179 on productivity. Or maybe it was perfection – while we get our best songs recorded for our album.

So as I record this, I have 10 more songs before I reach my monthly goal and I have four days to do it in. But it’s going to be a creative storm and I’m really excited about the next four days. It’s going to be fantastic. So thank you so much for the motivation and I’ll talk to you later. Thanks, bye.
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Okay, next we have Sarah. This is a really good one. Sarah listened to my podcast called Showing Up, where I encourage everyone to show up for themselves. We’re taught so often to show up for other people, to dress up for other people, to dress up for special occasions.

But we don’t often show up for ourselves, for when we catch a glance of ourselves in the mirror and when we spend the day with ourselves. She took this lesson and applied it to her life in a magnificent way. Please enjoy hers.
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Hey, it is Sarah calling from Boise. I am a stay at home mom that works from home and I used to think, you know, I have no one to impress since I’m by myself all day long. And I’ll actually get more done if I just stay in my yoga pants all day, you know. I’ll be ready for whatever strenuous laundry or dishes await me.

But really, what it meant was I was ready at any given time for a nap. And then, I listened to Brooke’s podcast called Showing Up. And until that point – I loved everything she said about cleaning up the mind and the Model. I loved it. But this episode had true practical application for me.

So that day, I decided to dress up for myself like every day was a special occasion, just like Brooke said. And in the beginning, my kids were like, “Mom, where are you going? What’s happening today? Where are your stretchy pants?”

And I would just tell them, you know, the usual. I’m taking the kids to the bus, walking the dog, going to get groceries, but I looked amazing. And better yet, I felt amazing. And the end result is now I get more done wearing heels at home than I used to wearing tennis shoes and yoga pants.

And actually, I get it all done in the morning, what used to take me a day. And now, I actually still have time for a nap if I want in the afternoon. But usually, I still feel good, I just keep going.

And before that podcast, if I happened to see myself in a mirror during the day, I would think, you look hideous, seriously, just go hide in bed. Just go take a nap.

Now, every day I wear my, quote en quote, fancy mom uniform. And when I walk past the mirror, I think things like, “Dang, girl, you look like you are ready to take on the world.” I literally say that stuff out loud. Like, “Girl, you are unstoppable.” And then I just get it done. It’s so amazing what showing up for yourself can do in terms of self-love and productivity. I love it so much so thank you, Brooke.
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This next one is from Jess White and it’s called Someone to Love. And she listened to my podcast where I talked about how amazing it is when your partner in your life, their only job is just to be who they are, and your only job is to love them and experience love for them.

What if their only job was just to be there so you could love them? I, of course, learned this so well from my puppies. I don’t’ expect a lot from them. I don’t want the, to meet my needs. I don’t ask them to do anything for me. I don’t get mad when they don’t comply with my every little need.

I just love them and it makes me enjoy my life and them so much more. And that unconditional love, as I apply it to my husband, Chris, does the exact same thing. And it’s something all of us can do to learn how to love in a deeper way is not expecting people to change so it’s easier for us to love them, but expecting that we change so we can love more easily. Please enjoy her post.
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Hello, this is Jess White, and my favorite episode that totally transformed my life and my relationship with my husband was episode 139, Someone to Love. I listened to that eight times in a row one day trying to figure out the concept that what if his only job is to live his life exactly the way he’s living it and he was just there to be an experience of love for me.

Then I could have him be my object of affection and his job is to be there for me to learn about love and to love someone. It was crazy. And I had just lists of things he was supposed to do to filmy needs. And they were actually posted on the bulletin board above his desk.

And as I’m listening to that podcast over and over again and then I think another podcast where you said, “Figure out a way to fill your needs…” I took that list and I figured them all out. The only thing I could not do was hold my own hand walking about town.

Everything else I could fill and be a full cup and come to him as a full cup and let him take care of his needs, which he does. He’s a man. They do better at that somehow.

It’s been transformational. It’s been a process. It didn’t happen overnight, but it’s been a thought that totally, totally changed my world and I’m so grateful to you, Brooke, for having that experience yourself and for being able to share that so eloquently so that I could learn that he is my someone to love and that he’s doing his job really well. And I just live my life. So I came up with my own thoughts. He can be who he is and I can be who I am. Thanks, Brooke.
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Okay, friends, this next one from Ludmila is so amazing. I love this one. This one is just the Model; how the Model changed her life and her relationship with her seven-year-old son. This is what I live for, y’all.

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Brooke, my name is Ludmila [Woodrow] and I have found you and your podcast last year when I was struggling with my relationship with my oldest son. He’s a very bright, decisive, and strong-willed person and being his mother required me to stretch myself beyond my comfort zone.

I used to be very reactive with him and screaming was one of my tools to deal with the overwhelm I was experiencing. I was always able to support others in their personal struggles, but unable to help myself in the area of motherhood.

When I understood the Model you share, I saw the light at the end of the tunnel and I decided to take responsibility for my thoughts. I became more responsive instead of being reactive and I also started to teach him, my seven-year-old son, how to become more self-aware and assess if he is responding or reacting with his behavior.

It has been a game-changer for both of us and for our entire family. Thank you so much for sharing all your tools and I will be forever grateful for all the work that you do. Thank you so much.
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This next one is fun, fun. This is from one of my Aussie fans. And I just want to say, all of you in Australia, I’m coming. I’m coming to you. I love you guys. First of all, I love your accents. I love your country. I love everything about you.

I also love unconditional love, which is what the topic of this one is. And I really like the way he talks about how he really loves himself and knowing that the world can’t determine how often he loves anyone else or himself. So beautiful. This is one of the most important lessons I teach, one of the most important lessons I am practicing learning constantly. Please enjoy.
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My name is Tyson Sharp. I am from Melbourne, Australia, and I’ve been listening to Brooke’s podcast for over a year. And the number one tool, key concept I’ve adopted in my life that’s radically shifted is unconditional love.

And I remember listening to the episode and – because there’s two of them – but especially episode 164. I was listening on the way to work and I just remember balling my eyes out. I listened to it three times on repeat because it hit me so emotionally when I realized that every single thing that I’m observing, that I’m reacting to, and I react poorly in a negative state, is only because of an internal conflict happening within me.

And in that moment, I felt not only empowered, but I also felt like I could really shift the way I view anything in terms of someone else’s behavior and how they react. And I’m also a coach, and since I stopped judging myself for my failures, I went from struggling as a coach to now having over 15 clients and loving what I do because I can release content, I can put myself out there, I can sell.

And I know, at the end of the day, no matter what happens, I’m going to love myself unconditionally. And especially getting on this call and leaving this review is a bit scary, but I know, even if I mess up, I’m still going to love myself unconditionally and you can do the same, and you can make those radical shifts for yourself.

I just want to leave that as a bit of a message and hopefully that inspires a little bit of motivation for those of you out there. Cheers.
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Okay, final stretch, last one. This one is called Who are You Becoming? [Reah Fry] is an author. And she’s not even becoming an author. She is an author. I love the way she talks about herself and her identity and the changes that she’s made. I also really appreciate the ending and what she says about the podcast and how much it affected her and how it’s affecting so many people.

It means everything to me. It is my purpose. It is one of the most important things that I do and it has been such an honor to ask myself who I’m becoming and to grow on this podcast right along with you guys. So please enjoy her post on who you are becoming.
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Hi, my name is [Reah Fry] And I am an author. One of the most incredible tools that I’ve learned is the podcast on who you are becoming and really believing from that place of who you want to be. So I want to be a bestselling author, so what kind of decisions does a bestselling author make?

What do I drink in the morning? How do I dress? Where do I live? And this has completely changed my life, my husband’s life, my daughter’s life, because we live in Nashville. We’ve been in limbo about if we want to be here or not for years.

Our families are here, we have a wonderful life. We’ve been renting. We haven’t made the best financial decisions. And we finally just bought a house. It’s kind of my dream house and I wouldn’t have done that if I had not started thinking from that place of kind of up-leveling my life and making the kind of decisions and waking up in the kind of room that I want to wake up in as a bestselling writer.

And I know that sounds a little materialistic or a little shallow, because it’s not all about materialistic things. I’m actually not a materialistic person, but it’s just that thought process of thinking from that place and really believing it.

And before I got my two-book deal, I wrote down what I wanted to happen. And I really feel like that tool as well, writing down what you want and seeing it and believing it every single day is the single tool that can really change everything. But you have to truly believe it and I cannot express my gratitude enough for how profoundly this podcast has changed my life.

I literally count down the days until a new podcast comes out. I think it has kept me on a completely positive trajectory and I cannot thank you enough. You do incredible work and you change people’s lives and I am just one of the millions who gets to benefit, so thank you.
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Alright, my friends, that is what I have for you this week. How amazing was that? Now, there were several more of you who posted here, and I just want to let you know, I let Pavel pick the ones. I let him pick all of them.

But I listened to all of them. I really appreciate all the posts that you guys made. I love hearing all of the accomplishments that you’ve made, all of the lessons that you’re learning from the podcast.

I am not going anywhere. This is where I’m going to be. I love working. I love podcasting. This is my true joy. I appreciate each and every one of you who tune in and subscribe.

I haven’t asked any of you to write a review lately, but it would be super awesome if you would. Go to thelifecoachschool.com, hit podcast, and we have directions on how to write reviews. And just say, like, the most awesome things about me. That would be super fun.

If this podcast has had an effect on you or anyone in your life and you think someone else would benefit from it, when you do a review on iTunes, it actually gets my reach higher, so more people will be able to find me.

I would really appreciate you doing that for me and for the people that haven’t found us yet. Take care. Have a beautiful week. I’ll talk to you next week; bye-bye.

Hey, if you enjoy listening to this podcast, you have to come check out Self-Coaching Scholars. It's my monthly coaching program where we take all this material and we apply it. We take it to the next level and we study it. Join me over at the TheLifeCoachSchool.com/join. Make sure you type in the TheLifeCoachSchool.com/join. I'd love to have you join me in Self-Coaching Scholars. See you there.