Transcript: 8 Thoughts to Stop Thinking About Your Practice with Dina Cataldo

Hello. Hello. So how are you doing today? So this morning I am joining you with my coffee and I'm hearing outside some birds tweeting and the air was actually really pretty nice this morning, which has not been true most of the last couple of weeks in California, especially in Northern California. So my heart goes out to everyone who is currently, you know, fighting a struggle of their own, whether it's a fire or something else going on in your life.

And today I want to talk to you about something that will help you with whatever it is you're going through. I know I titled this eight thoughts to stop thinking about your practice, but really you can use what I'm going to teach you today in any area of your life, no matter what is happening. I want you to know that there are tools available to you. And so this is what I wanted to focus on today. And if you are specifically working on creating more time in your practice, creating more time in your life, because even though so many of us are at home, we still notice that there are things that aren't getting then. And we haven't really thought through why they're not getting done. I've created a guide for you to help you get refocused. If you go to Dina, cataldo.com forward slash busy lawyer, you will get a free guide that will tell you exactly where to get started and how to help you create the guardrails that I am talking to you about today.

So go to Dina, cataldo.com forward slash busy lawyer. And you can find that guide there. I want to give a big shout out to my client, Andrea, for inspiring this episode, she was talking to me about how she now uses her morning journaling practice to create guardrails. That's the word she used around her thinking. She noticed she was more focused and productive first thing after journaling, but that her focus dwindled by the afternoon. And we talked during our session about how she could maintain those guardrails around her thinking. So she could maintain her focus and all the talking around guardrails got me thinking about the purpose of thought work and the that we do in this podcast. The work I do with my clients, everything I offer in my free trainings, it's really to strengthen the guardrails that keep you moving steadily towards your priorities.

I'm going to set this up further in a second, but I want you to think about what your priority is right now. Is it more fun in your life, more money to be more physically fit right now I'm in an eight week challenge. It's like day, gosh, and stay four. So I'm working on that as part of my focus right now, to work less, to feel less overwhelmed, to have a better relationship with your partner. And you might have multiple priorities. It's not to say that you just have to pick one of these and that's the only area of your life. You can be happy. You can have multiple priorities, even if you don't have a law firm of your own, just keep on listening to this because you're going to be able to incorporate what I am teaching here into whatever area of your life you are working on.

So we're going to break it down into eight thoughts to stop thinking about your business. And I'm going to give you some alternative thoughts to think along the way to help you make more progress. But before we do that, I want you to imagine a huge mountain, like the biggest mountain you can possibly imagine. I think of mountains in Tahoe, because those are the closest to me. And so when I'm driving through those, there are these huge, you know showstopper mountains where, you know, you have a train carved into the side of a mountain. I want you to imagine a mountain, maybe one you're familiar with that has a road carved into it. Okay? So on one side of you is going to be a steep mountain that goes up, up, up, and on the other side, you're going to have the mountain side that's going down.

And maybe down that side of the mountain, there's a river and lots of rocks and nooks where you can get stuck. And maybe there's some nice areas there where you might want to stay awhile and go camping. But if you stay too long, you're going to get eaten by a Wolf. Sorry. I had to go there here. There are things that look very beautiful and necessary when you see them from the road. But if you go off the road, go past the guardrail. They can lead to a lot of pain and they can lead to a lot of suffering that we create for ourselves. Now, all that is between the road carved into the side of the mountain and the pain below is a guard rail. And I like to think of the guard rail as our awareness. It helps us see when we're on the road, instead of going down the side of the mountain and the road contains all the thoughts that will get us, where we want to go, all the emotions that were, are going to help us get where we want to go and all the actions that we are going to take to make things easier for ourselves.

Okay? That's everything that's on the road. Now, the tempting yet ultimately miserable side of the mountain that is off the road, contains all the thoughts and all the emotions that are just going to make it take a lot longer to get back onto the road and get you to your destination. And I want to be clear, there's nothing wrong or bad about these thoughts off the side of the mountain that take you down there. Okay? They are perfectly normal. We all have them at one time or another, but staying there is going to keep you off the road where you want to be. You want to be on the road now think of this, right? Cause we could be driving down this beautiful road in the mountains and we want to take a peek over the guardrail. Like we want to see what's down there because it's, you know, it's messy and beautiful.

And there's just all of this gorgeous stuff down there. That's so tempting. And at the same time we know that we can't go past the guardrail because our mind is focused on the road. We're focused on our destination and we don't. We just take it for granted like, well, we're just not going to go past that guardrail. We're focused on the road. We're focused on what's ahead. So I want you to recognize that this is the same thing that's going on in our brain only, but we allow ourselves so many more times to go down the deep end of the mountain, right? I mean, when what's down the mountain, what's down, the mountain is the feelings of overwhelm and confusion and I'm angry. What else is down there blaming other people for how we feel? What else is down there? Not taking responsibility for our actions.

Maybe having like some extra gallon of ice cream gallon of ice cream. I don't know. Maybe you're having a gallon of ice cream. A lot of people are, you know, you know, it's COVID so, you know, maybe it's an extra gallon of ice cream. That's down the mountain, a extra glass of wine at night that you hadn't planned. It's down the mountain. So I want you to recognize that everything down the mountain are ultimately things that aren't going to serve your purpose on the road to get where you want to go, but they're there, right? They're there. We see them. And the other day my coach posted something and I talked about it on my Instagram account. If you're on Instagram, make sure you're there with me. Cause I go in there almost every day, go to at Dana dot Cataldo to find me there.

But I, I was talking about how, when, or my coach was talking about how bill Gates, like the two words that are used to describe him most often by people who know him best are focused. And the other is a phrase it's unrelentingly optimistic. I mean those two phrases, those three words perfectly describe his ability to stay on the road and not go past that guard rail. Okay. So that's what I want you to be imagining when I go through these different thoughts. I want you to imagine what may be keeping you from road and you can always find your way back to the road. Okay? Cause the guardrails just awareness. The guardrails telling you, Oh, Hey, you're not on the road right now. That's all it's telling you. It's like, Hey look, you're not on the path. Let's come back to the road.

It's a lot easier over here. Okay. So let's get started. All right. The first thought to stop thinking is it's not working. It's not working. How many times have you thought that this isn't working? It's not working. I don't know how to get this to work. Like all of these thoughts are related. I want to give you another metaphor while we're on this track. This road, a metaphor thing that I'm doing here. So race car drivers are trained that where their eyes are focused, that is where the car is going to go. So they are always telling themselves eyes up. Everyone around them is always reminding them eyes up, stay on the road. Don't go off the deep end, keep your eyes up because they're always looking ahead to the next, turn, their eyes. Aren't straight down. They're not off to the side. It's straight ahead looking up.

They're seeing the next turn. And as they're looking into the turn, they're turning the wheel. So they're always looking just up ahead of where they are. That is what we have to do. Whenever we're building a business. Whenever we are creating something in our life, we always have to be looking ahead to what the next thing is like what the next Hern is. And if we're thinking the thought it's not working, then nothing's going to work. It's taking us off past the guardrail down the deep end. And we're not thinking about what it is that we are doing that is creating the next turn that is available to us. So for instance, when, oftentimes when we're creating something like a podcast, right? Like when I started this podcast, no one listened to it, right? Like there were a few people who listened to it, but it was like, not that many.

And that's just how it works. Right. But if I had told myself, it's not working, then I wouldn't be looking ahead to when it is working. Right? Like of course it's working when I'm doing it and there's no listeners, it's a matter of building momentum. It's a matter of me building my ability to show up in bigger and better ways for the people listening to the podcast and developing that by actually doing the podcast. And if I'm not actually doing that, if I'm not keeping my eyes up and looking ahead towards what my ultimate goal with this podcast is, then that can cause me to go off track. It would cause me to not show up regularly. It would cause me to not be thinking more critically about the content that I'm creating for people listening. And that's the same for you in your business if or your relationship, whatever it is.

But like if you're building a business and you're telling yourself this isn't working, then consider some thoughts. Like, you know what, how can this be working? Like this is working it's happening and start looking critically at how you are thinking to keep you back on that road and start looking for evidence of how it is working. So for instance, in the podcast example I could look at while I know it's working because I have clients who come to me from the podcast. People I've never met before. People from different States, like they listened to the podcast and then they come and they coach with me. Like, I know that it's working. Those are different little bits of evidence. You can start showing yourself. It's like, Hey, people are listening. People are coming to me on Instagram and they're tagging me in their posts. And I'm like, Oh, Hey, they're listening to the podcast.

They're into this coaching world that I'm in. And that is what shows me. And that's what I have to look for to show me that it's working. Now. If I wanted to focus my attention off the guardrail and down the deep end, I could say, it's not working and start looking for all the reasons why it's not working. Oh, I don't have enough listeners. I don't have enough clients. I mean, I could just like go down a list, right? Like our brain wants to go naturally to the not enoughness the lack mentality. That's where our brain wants to go. Cause it's always wanting to protect us. It's always wanting to sustain us. And that is where our brain naturally wants to go. But to keep us back on track, we've got to think the thought it's working it's happening. Okay. So that is the first thought to stop thinking.

It's not working. Just don't think it. Okay. Just don't think it, the second thought is, I don't know how related to this is. I'm not sure. Now if you tell yourself, I don't know how, of course you're never going to figure it out. So why not think a better thought when that's going to keep you on the road to helping you figure out what you need to know to get you to your destination? How can I figure this out? Oh, there's gotta be a way everything. That's what Marie Forleo's has. Everything is figureoutable right. Like everybody says that too. So it's it's going or I don't know how I'm not sure is not a helpful thought. It's going to take you down the mountain. We don't want that. We want to keep us on the track. I'm protected by that guardrail of awareness and keeping us moving towards our destination.

So pick a better thought. Okay. That's what's going to keep us moving. The third thought to stop thinking is that it's going to take a lot of time. Now. I have had that thought before, right? Like that was actually the thought that I was really protective of. It was almost like, of course, like when you think, Oh, it's going to take a lot of time. It feels very protective. Like, okay, of course I'm in this for the long run. It doesn't, you know, it doesn't matter if nothing's happening right now, it'll happen eventually. Like these are all thoughts related to, it's going to take a time. And of course, when we think that it's going to take a long time, all right, I want you to recognize that it's just like that race car example, right? Like if we keep focused using on, it's going to take a long time, then it's going to take a long time and we're always going to have just something we're hoping for at the very end, maybe it'll happen.

And, and we keep chugging along, but that's, that is not bringing us the driven emotion, the certainty, the emotion that we need to get us to our destination. Instead, what it's doing is it's bringing, in some doubt, it's bringing in some, like, even the word hope, like I don't consider hope an awesome emotion to get us to our destination. I feel like that's one of the words, the emotions that I would put down the mountain, like way down the mountain, like it's like, Oh, we're, we're almost there. It's it. The hopeful emotion that driven energy to get us to our destination. Okay. Sometimes you need a little bit of hope because you've gone down the mountain and you need to get back up onto the road. Okay. But to get you there to have a sustainable emotion, that's going to get you to where you want to go home.

Not the one that I would choose. I would choose emotion like certainty or like yes. Like yes, energy. Like those are the things that I would, would want to get me to my destination. I know they'll propel me to where I want to go and thinking the thought it's going to take a lot of time is not going to get me there. A better thought that my coach gave me is it doesn't have to take a lot of time, but I am in it for as long as it takes. Let me say that again. It doesn't have to take a long time, but I'm in it for as long as it takes. And when you really like take the time to say the words, then it feels like, yes, yes, I'm doing this and yes, it's happening. Hey, the fourth thought to stop thinking, is this as hard?

And this is hard is often followed by the thought I deserve. These are not thoughts that are helpful to getting us to our destination. When we think it's hard, we're going to make it harder on ourselves. A better thought is to think something like, well, what would this look like? If this were easy, how can I make this easier on myself? Now notice that what I'm doing here is I'm asking curious questions. So when I come across a thought that I notice, right, because it's a guardrail, right? Remember the guardrails awareness down the mountain is, this is hard. That's not a super helpful thought. Right? And just picture it. This is hard is associated with the bottom of the mountain. This is easy. Would be more associated with the road that you're on. The guardrail is noticing that you're thinking this is hard. Or I, once you start noticing those thoughts, then you can start like asking yourself questions.

Like why? Like what can I do to make this easier on myself? What can I create to help me get this done? Like where, where can, where can I use my energy next? So asking yourself, these curious questions and approaching thoughts that you see that are down the deep end of the mountain, instead of judging them and being mean to yourself for having them. Cause they're totally normal. Just get curious, just say, Oh, Hey, I noticed I'm thinking it's hard. I noticing that I'm entitled right now. I'm thinking I deserve something that I don't have right now. What can, where can I put my brain power right now? That's going to get me back on that road. I start thinking like that. And you will more often than not find yourself on the road rather than down the deep end. Okay. Thought number five to stop thinking.

It should be different. I should have it already. It should be easier. It should be going faster, right? It should. It should. It should. All of this is disagreeing with reality. And instead of arguing with reality, your energy, our energy is always better spent thinking about what is going to get us to our destination. Like bill Gates doesn't think it should be different. He thinks, Oh, I see a problem. What is that problem? Like, he gets really curious about it. He starts asking himself, Oh, there's there's polio in the world. Okay. Where is that problem showing up? Why is that problem showing up? And he starts getting really analytical about it. If we thought about our businesses this way, it would be so much easier. Right? But we wrap up so much of our self worth and our emotions into our business, that it makes it really difficult to see things in a very analytical way.

But if we take a step back and we do what those people who are most focused, do the people who have those guard rails, protecting them, like they're, they've got amazing awareness about what they need to do to focus like the thoughts they need to think to focus. And they haven't, they don't practice the thoughts that are down the mountain. They're thinking, okay, what's going to get me to my ultimate destination. What is my goal? His goal is eradicating polio. His thoughts are questioning why there is polio. What is happening in the world that is creating it? How can he use resources in order to combat it? What, where are those resources best used to create the most value? Like what if we thought about our businesses more often in this way, more analytically rather than more emotionally. And when we start taking away thoughts, like it should be different.

It should be going faster. It should be easier when we start eradicating those, then it becomes easier for us to see where we are going to ask ourselves the relevant questions about our business, to focus more intensely on what we're creating for our clients. We do that. We stay on that path. All right. Thought number six to stop thinking. I need to know more before I do anything. Okay. This is fascinating. I used to do this all the time and it got me stuck in procrastination. And it made like having those thoughts that I need to know more created this angsty in my body because I could never know everything I thought I needed to know because I basically thought I needed to know everything there was to know about running a business. Not true. Okay. Not true. I teach my clients when I'm working them with them to be decisive because the more decisions that we make, whether they are benefiting our business or not, the more data we get, this goes back to us being more analytical about our business.

So the fewer decisions we make and the more time that we take thinking about and researching and trying to figure out what other people are doing. The more time we do that, the fewer decisions that we are making, we are training our brain, not to make decisions. And when we're not making decisions, we're down the mountain, right? It's arduous, it's painful. There's wolves coming at us. And it really feels that way. We feel overwhelmed. Like we can't get it done and that, and we feel stress and everything that comes with building the business, we think that's a waste just supposed to be. It's not okay. But once we start building those guardrails, that awareness to see when our brains going down there, we can say, okay, no, Hey, Hey, Hey, come back here, come back here. We'll say really nicely. Right? Like we're always nice to ourselves.

We never like yell at herself. So we're just like, Hey, come back to the road. It's way nicer up here. We're going to get where we want to go better up here. And you just say, Hey, you already know what you need to know. What's the next best step for you to take right now? Right now it could just be emailing someone that you have a spot available in your calendar. It could be telling someone like, Hey, like I had a client who was increasing her practice, her estate planning practice. And she wanted to let some clients know, Hey, she's available now because they had expressed interest and she hadn't had the opportunity to reach out to them. And when she started thinking thoughts that kept her on that road, then she could say, okay, this is what's going to get me to my destination.

And ultimately creating the business that I want. And that is contacting just these five clients who had potential clients who had reached out to me recently. So that is what we need to keep doing. We need to look at things analytically and come back to the road as often as possible. We're retraining our brain to have that awareness and stay on that road. Okay. This is another thing. I want to come in with one more race car driving metaphor. Cause when I started researching race car driving, cause I had heard that one snippet about how they're always focused ahead, but this was even more interesting. And it ties in with the research aspect because so many of us get bogged down in researching our competition and wanting to see what everyone else is doing rather than looking at what you want to do and what you want to create and what you are most comfortable doing.

So I want to tie this in here. So race car drivers are also taught that they don't want to look directly at the car in front of them when they want to pass them, because then they're just going to follow them. And of course, when you follow them, you're just going to have a collision. So they always keep their eyes just past the car in front of them. They avoid that collision and it helps position them to get ahead of their competition. And I thought that was really interesting because we are so tempted to look at the competition for our direction rather than our inspiration. Okay. So don't look at your competition for direction. You can look at them for inspiration, okay. But if you're getting bogged down in the thought that you need to research more, you need to see what other people are doing.

You need to know everything about what's going on rather than just looking at them for inspiration. And then you're going to be down that, that cliff down the side of the road. I see this happen a lot with clients. When it comes to pricing their products, they don't need to price based on what someone else's pricing. What they have to do is look at what is it worth to me? Is that something I am willing to do for X amount of dollars? Or am I going to feel like I'm doing way too much work? Or is it worth it to me to sell that for X amount of dollars at a lower price than I might want to sell it for so that I can get some testimonials so that I can put those on my website so that I can bring more people in.

I mean, there's different things that you can consider, but that's what I talked to my clients about is considering from their own perspective, rather than looking outwards and trying to figure out like, okay, what are other people doing as is this way it's going to work? Like if it doesn't feel good to you in your pricing, you're not going to want to do it. So why look to other people, if they're selling a product for less, a less, a lesser price than what you are willing to do that work for something to keep in mind here. All right. So we are at thought number seven, thought number seven, not to think, just stop thinking this. I have done this before. That's why I, I want to impart what I have learned to you. I've thought things like I'm not really, I don't feel connected to my intuition or I don't, I don't trust myself.

Right. Or I don't trust my gut. And I've had people to me on consults and in my coaching calls and they don't trust themselves. So I totally understand where they're coming from because I've had the same thoughts. And when we think those thoughts, we become more and more disconnected. We go further and further off the road. Why think this thought it's not a helpful thought. Now you can ask yourself questions like, huh, that's interesting. I wonder why I feel that way. I wonder why I don't trust myself. I wonder why I don't feel connected right now. And you can start seeing things like maybe you're not taking the time to yourself that you need. And that's one of the actions that you need to take on that road to get to your destination. Right? And the guard rail is there to give you awareness like, Oh, Hey, I don't feel connected.

And that guard saying, okay, this is what's going to get you back onto that road. Okay. Maybe it's more time to myself. Maybe it's eating healthier. Maybe it's getting back into a workout routine. Maybe it's starting up that journaling practice. Again, all of these different things are there for you if you choose right. The last thought, Oh, this is my favorite thought. I think I talked about this in one, in a recent podcast. But the, the eighth thought to stop thinking about your practice is that I'm missing something, right? Like why would we ever choose to think the thought I'm missing something it's all tied in with some of the other thoughts. Right? So if you're thinking I'm missing something, you're probably also thinking it should be going faster. And this is hard. I deserve, you're probably thinking something like I don't trust myself because you're looking towards the outside as if you're missing something rather than looking inside and discovering how you can use what you already have and be resourceful and create what you want.

Hey, you are probably also thinking things like it's not working. You're probably also thinking thoughts. Like, I don't know how so all of these are tied in with this one sentence, I'm missing something. And it seems so innocent. Like, Hey, I'm missing something. Like we lost something like we just, we just dropped it. We just don't know where it is. I used to think this all the time and not too long ago. Let me tell you that. Okay. So I want you to know that when you think I'm missing something, recognize like, Hey, that is not a thought that if I'm going to get to my destination, that is very helpful for me to think that's down the mountain. I'm not missing anything. I'm going to look at my business. Analytically. It's all there in front of me. I have everything I need. This is happening.

This is working. I'm figuring it out. All of these are way better thoughts. Right? I'm missing something. It's like, Whoa, up in the air. I have no idea. What am I missing? Who's going to tell me what I'm missing here, because I'm missing. There's like a piece of the puzzle that I just can't figure out. These thoughts are not helpful. But when we put ourselves on that path and we recognize that that's not a helpful thought, then we can start thinking more in terms of all right, what do I have in front of me right now? What data do I have about my business that is going to show me what I need to be thinking about differently? And it's always about thinking differently. It's never about doing more so often. We are tied to our self worth of doing more. Okay. Like doing more is how I got praised as a kid.

Like when I did more, when I worked hard, that's when I got my praise. So I had to unlearn that tune and start recognizing no, it's not in the doing that. You create your value. And it's of course not in doing anything that creates your, your value, your worth, because that is innate. But when you are creating something for someone else, when you're creating a business, then you have to start looking at things differently. You need to think things differently because you are now thinking in terms of how can I create value for my client? How can I think about my business in a way that is going to connect more deeply with my clients, that's going to draw them in. That's going to inspire them to take action. And when we begin building those guardrails of awareness, then we can start seeing all of these thoughts that are unhelpful and then bring them back onto the road so that we can get to our destination.

And that's what I do with my clients. I help them get to their destination faster. I helped them build that guardrail. So if you want to learn more about working with me, go to Dina, cataldo.com forward slash strategy session, and you can learn how to work with me. All right. I hope you have a wonderful week and I'll talk to you soon. Bye. If you love what you're learning on the podcast, imagine how you'll evolve. When you start implementing what you're learning, you can learn how to work with me to do just that by scheduling a free strategy session, go to Dina, cataldo.com. That's Dina cataldo.com. Talk to you soon.