The Success Trap: Why High Achievers Feel Empty (And How to Fix It)

0:00 I have so many people always telling me in my practice, oh well, you know, my brain likes to look for the worst case scenarios. Okay, So what I'm hearing is your brain has this amazing superpower. It can go from a single idea and explode it, you know, have that snowball effect. We just need to change the direction. The good news is your brain already has that ability. We just need to shift it. So you don't need to relearn an entire process. We just need to shift your brain according.

0:48 Welcome, Madeline, Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. I can't wait to chat more. We always have the best chats together. Also, it's missing as a good cup of macho, right. That's all we're going right now, exactly. So I am so excited to talk to you about successful female mindset like it's a platform dedicated to helping women rewire the way they think about success, confidence, and self worth. Through your work, you empower women to step into their ambition without apology and build lives that feel aligned from the inside out. I am so excited to dive into what it really means to cultivate a mindset that supports the life you want. So when you say successful female mindset, what does that actually mean to you?

1:35 Well, for me, it was actually a powerful moment in my life story where I felt a need to redefine what success meant for me. For the longest time, I was brought up to believe that the academic life tuck was the way to go, and that's what a successful life meant. It was, you know, checking all these boxes, getting the degrees, the title, moving up the latter and I got to a point in my life where I did achieve all of that. Everything looked great from the outside, but on the inside, my body was just not following. Everything was crashing, everything was just completely off. And my doctor was the one telling me, you cannot keep going up at this level. Like your body is speaking to you for a reason, you must listen to it, because, let's face it, when we are social workers and therapists, we're really good at helping others, but when it comes to leaning into ourselves, it's a work in progress. So that was a big turning point for me where I really had to look into my life and go, you know what, if this is what the price of success looks like. I've been told that this is what I need to achieve, but if it comes at the cost of my health and my well being and my relationships around me, I don't know if I really want this.

2:54 So that's how the page was born. Was just really with my need to question what success means, what we are being taught is successful life is, and how to redefine it so we can live it in a way that's more aligned with us and what's truly important. I felt there was a lot of noise that needed to be cleared and to get really centered and kind of come home to myself and what's important to me. What are my values, my beliefs, and how I want to live my day to day life, because that's all we get, right, We get today. We can't change the past. We have no idea what the future holds for us. All we get is today. So how can I bring more pockets of joy into my life? Because that, to me, that is what a successful life is, is to create pockets of joy throughout my day and be the ones I love.

3:42 You mentioned being a social worker and doing work that helps people. Can you tell us more about that, tell us more about your work and your career as well. In your career as well, as the page itself. Well, Yes, I have quite a diverse career. I spent about the first ten years of my career I worked in crisis intervention, so I worked I specialized mostly in suicide prevention, intervention, and also postvention, helping families that had to deal with the impact of having lost a loved one. I also developed a specialty in homicide prevention as well, so that was really my career for the first ten years of my life. It was all about how to save a life and how to do it quickly, because sometimes you will get someone who comes to you and they're going through a difficult time in their life, and you have weeks and months to work with them. But I also had clients that would come to me and it was a matter of minutes and a matter of seconds.

4:44 So I had to learn how to tap into someone's mindset very quickly so that we could keep them living longer and choosing to choose life, so that we could work with them to help them get through this difficult situation and want to continue living and seeing all the beauty in life again because they just weren't seeing it anymore. So that was really one part of my career and then another part of my career, Like I said, I'm from the academic field. I did my bachelors in psychology, my master's in social work, and I did a PhD in social work as well. Didn't finish it though, because that was part of my pivot journey. So yeah, for about boy, I want to say, like almost a decade, I specialized in domestic violence and family mediation, helping women navigate those situations, understanding how to get through it, how to help the kids get through it as well, how to empower women to tell their story and decide what they need in a difficult situation like that. So that's really what all of my research was about. And also sharing the resiliency of women, just to highlight what we're capable of and what, you know, faced with the hardest challenges in our lives, how we overcome them. So that was a lot of what my research focus on. And I've also spent fifteen years in the academic field, but working more as a social worker with students, so helping

6:17 them manage anxiety, depression, you know, building their self confidence, just navigating adulthood. So that's really been my career. It's quite eclectic, but Honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way. It's shaped who I am, it shaped how I see life. And I learned so much from the people I work with every single day. We've worked with a wide range too, like it's it's a big age range, but also a lot of different mental health areas there that you covered. As a person who is a survivor of a family dying to suicide, I want to stop for a second and just pause and say thank you, like thank you for the work that you did with all of those different people, because you know, crisis management like that is so important and it's just it's so near and dear to my soul.

7:11 So thank you for your work all those years doing all those different serving all those different people. And know that from like the other side, like as a family member of somebody, it matters a lot. So I as you walked through that, I wanted to say what, I'm just curious. I guess what you learned about crisis intervention that applies to how you live your life now? Like, what did you take away from all the working through all of those crisis situations. I think one of my biggest takeaways is the fact that you never know what someone's going through in their life.

7:52 You never know and how like how life events affect someone differently. No one's going to live it the same way. Everyone has their own journey, their own path, and you just you never know, You never know what anyone's going through. I think that was my biggest takeaway and that really reinforced in me the need and also the messaging on my page as well, the importance of being kind and just what can we do to be the energy that we would love to receive because we never know what someone's going through, and we never know if we're going to be the person who probably is going to make a difference in their day on that single day, whether that's smiling for them, maybe it's giving them an encouraging word, or holding the door for them or something. We never truly know the impact of what we do. But that is what I would hear in my office sometimes that is what would help someone cling to life and to choose to continue, was the fact that, oh, well, this person was nice to me, this person helped me feel seen, this person believed in me. So that is what I'm going to hold on to. So we never know the impact and we know, we never know what someone's going through.

9:08 So that is the biggest takeaway that I have for my career. And also the importance of enjoying where we are right now asking for help, not not not staying alone with the with the difficulties that we're going through, to never hesitate to reach out for a helping hand. There's always going to be someone to catch it. And also I find it's it was also the idea that okay, you know what, that idea slipped away. I was having a profound moment and unfortunately the idea slipped away. Who it will come back. It's it will.

9:48 We'll get you back there. We'll get you back there, so before we do, maybe and maybe this will help it. Maybe not. I don't know. But you mentioned the pivot moment. You said you talked about a pivot moment, and I want to know more about that and how you work through and approached that. Well, yeah, I definitely had a pivot moment in my academic journey because again I was always told, you know, to stack those degrees, keep publishing, keep publish, or perish. How I've had I've heard that one, And it was always about doing more and more and more and I got to a part I was like, why am I doing this? PhD? Am I doing it for myself? Or am I doing it to prove something to others? Am I doing it to show myself that I'm enough? Or am I doing it to show others that I'm enough by being able to add a few extra letters to my name? Why am I really doing this? And at the time when I was doing it, I was working full time. I'm a mom, I was, you know, doing it full time, my studies full time, and I just I got to a realization where this isn't what I don't want to do anymore. Loved my career in academics, but I'm at a point in my life where I want to pivot and I want to do something different.

11:01 And for so many people around me, first the first reactions were, well, don't do it. You have to keep going, You're so close to the end. Oh, come on, we're going to get to call you doctor, Like, just keep going, And yes, that's beautiful, but I need to do it for me. I need to do it's right for me. So I went a different path. I took that pivot, even though so many people told me not to I knew in my heart that that is what I needed to do at that time. I needed to focus on me, on my family, on my well being, and I needed to live life. I could no longer live life chasing a carot that was constantly being moved. Anyways, there's always something else being added to the list. I just wanted to live in the here and now. So that was the powerful pivot for me.

11:45 And you weren't an alignment Like That's the thing I'm hearing is that it was not in alignment with what you were meant to do or meant to do, how you were meant to be living. So how did you work through getting into alignment? Then? It took a lot of deep work, but mostly at the subconscious level. That's where I realized I had to do most of my work. I always tell my clients, you know, if you want to do deep, profound change, and I like to compare my life to a cell phone, because let's face it, we all live our lives with our phones. Right, Changing the outer case of your phone will not do anything. It's not going to change your life or whatever you have to go. You have to update the programming. If you have to change the entire phone itself. Then that's what you need to do. So I had to really do some deep work to understand what was my core identity, what are my core beliefs, what's driving me, what are my values? And also to cut through the noise, because the reason why I was living my life a certain way and it longer felt align was because there were so many echoes from the past.

12:50 And we have a lot of those in our heads right in our inner monologue. We have a lot of echoes from our past that are pulling us in certain directions or telling us how we need to live. We're handed a life contract when we came into this world. It's just that none of us read the life contract, and we certainly didn't read the fine print. And that's how I felt about my life. I was like, I need to go, I need to get you need to rip up that life contract. I need to completely redo it from scratch, and I need to cut out the noise. And that itself can be so challenging because we always have that voice in our head telling us, Oh, you can do this, or you can't do this, or no, you can't. What are they going to think? And it's such a convincing voice because it sounds exactly like us, but it's not. It's just echoes from the past, but they have learned to impersonate us. And that's what gets so challenging when you need to kind of do that clean up, because you're constantly telling yourself, well, if it's I'm telling this to myself and my own voice, I wouldn't be lying to myself like this has to be true.

13:52 But it's not. It's actually other people's voices or its situations or experiences that your brain interpreted in a certain way. And sometimes we're still carrying beliefs or perspectives or a certain vision from maybe situations that we dealt with as kids and were our child's brain was just trying to handle it as best as we could back then, and I was like, is that still serving me now? Maybe I need to switch that up. So I had to do all of that deep work. Basically everything that I do with my clients I had to do with myself. So a very humbling experience, but it was so gratifying as well to be able to come home to me to what I want and to craft my own path, my own vision, and to create an identity at the subconscious level that works with me, and that's when everything else in my life starting started to align as well.

14:43 It's a beautiful story, honestly, and it's inspiring to me, and I'm hopeful to others to trust their instinct and not be afraid to make changes that might feel scary to make the good come true. Honestly, Like the the dream can happen, you just have to take the next little step toward it. And you talked about drowning out the noise, cutting the noise. You've mentioned the noise a few times, and I need to know what you do to stay grounded. Then how do you how do you do that? Like on a super practical level, like how do you cut the noise? And how you do how do you stay present?

15:24 I will start to say that it is an ongoing practice. We don't we don't do the work and put everything's done. It's something we have to work on every single day. I do a lot of daily check ins with myself throughout the day. Whenever I see that my thoughts are not going in the direction that is su and when I'm trying to achieve, that's where I kind of have to stop I stop the narrative, take a deep breath, I inhale what I want, I exhale what I don't. Well, and I together. I mean, like, let's just stop for a second. You inhale what you want and you exhale what you don't. That exactly, that's an easy practice that any of us can do. I mean, you could stop at any point in your day and inhale what you want and exhale what you don't. Yeah, it's powerful.

16:09 You just you just yeah, I. Know, I don't want to keep going. I don't want to interrupt you, but I did. I did just want to say, like I wanted to. I hate I hate the word double click, but like that's what and I'm like, we need a double click on that, Like we need to say, like, okay, that is a simple ease. Not easy for everybody, and maybe you have to set an alarm on your phone or like whatever, but like the simple little thing that you can do once or twice a day to just like be like recheck yourself. Yeah. Absolutely, I was going to say, if you want to intensify it, you you put on one of your favorite songs as well. You're speaking my language, girl. Because that is like, that is one of the most powerful ways to activate it and take it to that next level, and it kind of takes away that pressure of you having to come up with your own thoughts as well. Because music is so powerful, right If we especially if we listen to a tune that always brings us like in our best energy and our best vibe, it's going to do most of the work. So that's often one of the ways to kind of create that shortcut inhale what you want, excel what you don't. Put on that great music to keep you going into whatever mood you want to be in. Music is a powerful tool that can help us. And it's a two minute tune.

17:21 You don't even have to sing to the entire thing, but sometimes that's a great way to intensify it. So you can do that shift very quickly. I'll be singing. And also I need to know what your music is like, do you have songs? Do you have a playlist? Like? How do you what is what is the song that Madeline puts on when she needs that moment? I am I'm such a fan of the song tell it to my heart. It's just it's just one of my go tos. Honestly, I can't hate that. I always forget the artist's name. In the show notes. It's okay, But what else are you going to say? If I just love any kind of good upbeat music whenever's on the radio. I'm just I'm a lover of music.

18:07 And sometimes listening to classical music is very powerful as well, like that really just brings you to that next level. I don't know, I just love all music me. Too, And it's the strings for me in the classical music, like the violin, Like I combine a violin with a piano, and I like it's like my heart feels at peace. I don't know how to describe it. It's just this beautiful. There's a song by Lindsay Sterling and don't know, I'm gonna forget now too, but there's a song by Lindsay Sterling that was on She just released some clip of it and I watched it was like a ten second clip that showed up on my Instagram, and it reset my entire nervous system. Like I feel the music in a way that I can't even describe, which is honestly, Madeline, you know, like this is why you know with my podcast, the three tools that I have like in my tool belt that I like to talk about with my mindset, our music, mindset, and movement. And when all three of those things can come together like that is magical for me.

19:06 So you know, you're that's when I when I joke, you're speaking my language. You're absolutely speaking my language. So thank you for that. And you know what I wanted to get into a little bit more when you were talking about the people you never know what somebody's going through, Like you never really know. It made me think of this beautiful image that I keep I see different versions of it and maybe I even saw one on your on the Successful Female mindset, But the image of people walking through like a crosswalk and then there's like or like on the on like a freeway, and like there's little words about it that say like dad died today, lost job today, kid got sick today, you know, like and it's just you just never know, like what somebody's going through. So how do you like reach out, Like how do you how do you be the difference in the world that we want to see?

19:58 It's all about simple gestures, right, That is really for me. It's the easiest thing to do just to be there for someone and find a way for them to be to be seen, heard and validated. Just by telling someone, hey, I'm seeing you, I'm hearing you like that is so powerful in itself to again, like I mentioned earlier, just smiling to someone, giving them a kind word or an encouraging word. You never know what they need that day. We're even telling someone hey, I've noticed this about you. You are very good at doing this thing. This is showing attention to detail, and this is showing that you are taking to the time to see this person, understand how they work and notice that one thing that they do really really well. And who has ever not appreciated having someone tell you, Oh, I really appreciate how you're like your penmanship, or how you're always showing up in a great mood, or you're always doing this or you're always doing that. It's that attention to detail. Just taking a moment to really stop and notice the people around us and what is it about them that makes them unique or why do we specifically appreciate them and to tell them to share, to share it, not be afraid of it. I'm always asking myself why are we so scared of Like why are we so quick to hold back on giving away compliments?

21:20 Right? It baffles me. On the internet, we're very quick to go in the other direction. But when it comes to giving people compliments and telling them what we appreciate about them, Hey, I love your voice, I love how you spoke up here, I love your ideas, I love your perspective. For some reason we shy away there and that is definitely something that we need to encourage more of. And another one that I find is so important as well is when someone does confide something in you or wants to talk, just to ask them how can I support you? Right now? Because more often than not, we kind of we kind of get into solution mode. Right someone comes to us with a situation where like, Okay, I'm going to tell you how to navigate this. We can't. We are not them.

22:03 We do not know what their life story is, we do not know what they're going on. We know nothing. So who are we to come and say this is what you should be doing? How about we just ask them how can I support you? Would you like me to sit with you in silence? Do you just need me to hear you out? Do you need a hug? Do you need me to get you a little piece of chocolate? Like what do you need? How can I support you? And that's sometimes the easiest thing to do is just asking someone how can I help you? Right now? What do you need from me? And then we get to decide how we can help in return, Like there's also that, but just asking someone what do you need? And not to decide and advance the help that we think that they need. It's a powerful question how can I support you? How can I help you? And it's actually it's interesting that you should say that because it's actually part of what I have found to be part of my abundance mindset, right, Like an abundance and gratitude are like at the heart and soul of everything for me. So when and they are super related because I find that they both used properly together, they both change literally everything. So asking how you can help is such a good insight because that you know opens doors, and it's especially I mean obviously when it's sincere and real, it's just it can change so much more than you even know. So speaking on mindset, like, was there a moment when you realize that your mindset had to change or shift before your circumstances could and

23:34 can you walk us through like what that looked like? Absolutely? For me, mindset is the foundation because that is what dictates everything. And it's so important to understand how your specific mind works as well so that you can work with it and sway it and get it working in your favor rather than having it work against you. So you kind of have to become really buddy buddy with your mindset and understand and how it works, and understand how your mindset works specifically and what's holding you back, because we often have different things holding us back. We can have our mindset, our thought processes, our beliefs, all these things that we inherited through our life journey. But there's also just how our brain is hardwired to protect us all the time. Right. It loves us so much that it's like, no, no, no, I don't want you to step out of your comfort zone. I don't want you to do things that go into the now. Let's stay in this little safe space that we know really really well. And often that is when we need to have a conversation with our brain and go you know what, I get that you're coming from a pind caring and loving place. But right now, I need to do this for me, and it's okay for me to step outside my comfort zone because I know that that is where beautiful things are waiting for me. So there's all about that with mindset and again using it to work for you, not against you. I have so many people always telling me in my practice, oh well, you know, my brain likes to look for the worst case scenarios. Okay, So what I'm hearing is your brain has this amazing superpower.

25:05 It can go from a single idea and explode it, you know, have that snowball effect. We just need to change the direction. The good news is your brain already has that ability. We just need to shift it. So you don't need to relearn an entire process. We just need to shift your brain accordingly. I know, I'm like that. My brain is like grab one idea and like proof, it'll go into a million directions. But it's learning to shift my brain and go, yeah, you're right, if what if it goes well? What if it all works out? And then I just tweak my brain to go into the other direction and really actively force it to look at the positive outcomes and to not be so scared of shortcomings. We are so scared of falling, which I always find so interesting. And you know, I live in Canada.

25:53 We've got snow, and every single year I'm scared of falling. But you know what happens every year. Every year there's there's a little piece of ice I did not see, or you know, I slip in the snow. I fall, And I always tell myself, listen, I could just stay there and be like, Okay, you know I found the snow. This is it, Like, just leave me here, find me in the spray, or I can just you know, I can just get back up and keep going with my day. That is the worst thing that can happen is that I get up and I keep going on with my day. And maybe one or two people saw it, and of course I'm in Canada, everyone's going to be rushing over you. Okay, what can we do? But we have to be we have to stop being scared of falling and we have to we have to again, that's another mindset shift that we need to make when we are rewiring our subconscious to teach our brains it's okay to try things, because no, I will not fail. The only thing that I will have is I will gain experience, I will gain a lesson.

26:51 I will realize, Okay, we tried that. That didn't work. We need to try something else. There can only be a win, but you need to retrain your brain to see it that way, because your brain likes to look for danger all around and you need to cheat it. No, it's okay, there's actually winds out there, and that is what we need to focus on. So it's a lot of deep subconscious work at that level. The part of your brain that can is strong enough to picture everything going wrong is also strong enough to picture everything going right. Like that is that's what you said in a few less words, and it's it's genius because like what if instead of asking can I do it?

27:33 We say how can I do it? And it's not it's it's it's it's a small shift, and it's I do believe that it's a muscle, like I do believe that as you start to do this work and you start to recognize, Okay, I fall down every winter, but I get back up and I don't care what other people think when I fall down because it's cold and it's icy and it happens right. So you just keep getting back up and the muscle to it. It's a fascinating switch. So I'm grateful you walked us through how that looks because it's something that it takes practice. But you're never going to get there if you don't practice it. So, you know, one of the barriers to that, I feel like is feeling exhausted or tired or burned out or overwhelmed.

28:21 As I'm sorry, but a lot of us do, like a lot of us, you know, men and women alike, but women in particular, high achieving women are secretly walking around dog tired. So how do you define success in a way that doesn't cost us our peace? I don't think. I don't think we can define what success because we're, like you said, we constantly go around with these three million mental checklists and the mental load and all of that, and it's trying to navigate it as best as we can every single day. So what's the difference between being successful and feeling successful? Like, how do you how do you work through.

29:04 That deciding what is a marker of success for you? If for you, being successful is the fact that you woke up, you were healthy, those around you are healthy, everyone was fed, and everyone had a roof for their head today. Then there you go. That is success. You get to decide with what a successful life is. It's up to you. No one else can decide for you. We've been told like that, we have this giant checklist of things that we're supposed to attain. You're probably like me. We are constantly told every single day our house has to be perfectly organized at all times. We have to make everything from scratch, everything needs to be organic, Like we have to work out, we have to do this, you know that we somehow have to get one hundred and fifty grands approaching every single day, Like it just gets so much, and it's it's take the list down and what's really important, what's really going to make a difference?

30:04 And I remember I had heard this on another podcast and I just thought it was like the most fabulous thing ever to ask yourself, will this matter in five minutes? Will this matter in five weeks? Will this matter in five days and five months and in five years? And if the answer is no, then it doesn't really matter. You know, in five years, it will matter to me that everyone was safe and happy in my home, you know, whether they had the perfectly organic snack right off, Liza, I'm going to do the best I can. So we just have to shift our focus and make a shorter checklist of what a successful life means to us. And then it's how can we bring a little more joy?

30:44 Like I said, it's pockets of joy every single day? How can I take something that I need to do anyways and just have a little more fun with it because we cannot add more onto our plate. We just can't. There's no more room on the plate. We need to clear things off. How can I have more quality and focus on that rather than focusing on the quantity of things. How can I have more quality time, more quality conversations, more quality moments. That is how you get out of that burnout and everything, because otherwise, if it's just adding more, you're going to be more exhausted. But if you're taking off things, Notice how your shoulders are probably feeling right now. The idea of taking things off and just enjoying more of a moment, you're probably a lot less stressed in your shoulders right now.

31:29 Right, Yes, I mean, and you spoke to joy, which is my like, my one of my favorite words, because I you know, you talk about choosing joy and it sounds like this like super ethereal hard to define thing or not. I mean, it really doesn't have to be. And that's what I find is that I associate joy with gratitude honestly, so as you may or may not know, I have a practice on social media that I call joy from the ground up where I ask people what they're grateful for on a like as close to a daily basis as I can, just to stop and say, hey, stop the scroll and find something right now that you're grateful for. It could be And the thing, the thing is you you get more of what you look for.

32:17 So like you're you're practicing to look for the joy and to look and it doesn't have to be something huge, like it could just be that the sun is shining today. Like you and I both live in a place where it's it's dark and gray and cold and miserable this time of year, where it's it's just it's you have to find a way to create your own sunshine, and that that's it's that too, is another muscle that we practice with. So how do you how do you? I mean I'm trying to think, like, how do you how do you do that though, Like I I know how to do it because I've been like I practice it every single day, and it's it can be difficult, you know, particularly if somebody is like feeling stuck or feeling behind.

32:58 So like, what's a small set shift that somebody who is I guess feeling stuck or behind could make today just one small thing to change to change things for better for them. When in order to take away that overwhelm and for some people, like you said that jump to joy is quite a big step and we don't need to make it right away. Sometimes it's just saying, what is the tiniest little step that you can take that today that is taking you a little closer to where you want to go? You know what's that time? And it can be the tiniest little step. It can be just sitting down and reading one page of a book because you know that that is something that will make a difference in your day. Then sit down and read one page if that's all you can fit in, do that. If your goal is to read a whole book, just focus on reading that first page. It doesn't need to be big.

33:53 If for you your goal is to just sit down and take a breath. How many of us actually stop to just take a real breath in a day. We're constantly like just breathing it out, and honestly, sometimes we're so close to hyperventilating, but it doesn't really show. So just taking the time to just actually just take a deep breath, to just breathe in for four seconds, hold it for two seconds, and exhale for eight seconds. It can be as simple as that. That right there, that is a gratitude moment where we are being grateful for the ability to breathe and we are joyful about the fact that our body remembers how to do it and we don't have to think about it, so it can be It's all about deciding what is successful for you and how can you be more present in those moments.

34:40 So before we go into joy, it's just how can we just be more present and just acknowledge what is working right now. It doesn't have to be great or anything, just what is working right now. Hey, I can see right now, my eyes work. I'm going to focus on the fact that I can see color, I can see birds, I can see you know, I can see all the colorful books in your background. I can see all of those things. Let's just focus on that. Let's just focus on all the things I can see around me, on the things that I can touch around me, on the things that I hear. Just take it down a notch. And we have to stop putting that pressure on ourselves. And I think that that is something that we have a lot right now. It's all about always doing more and everything feels so big. And that was also part of my journey about having like a success mindset is everyone's always like, oh, you have to find your purpose, you have to find your thing. It always sounded so big.

35:37 I'm like, that's scary. How can we take it down the notch? So I'm always telling people, like, if you're telling everyone we have to go climb that mount Everest, of course we're all going to freak out like that, this is huge. How can we just talk about Can we just talk about taking that first little step? So let's take it down the notache. Just take off that pressure and just focus on being. Quick before you forget, what's one truth about success that you wish every woman deeply believed. Take care of you, to take care of you, and listen when your body is talking to you, because your body is your biggest ally, so listen to it. If it's telling you something's off, please listen to it.

36:29 It starts with you, honestly, and that speaks to the self love element of things, where you know, there was an illustration at a conference that I went to about a vase, and I think I may have shared this story with you once already, so I apologize, Madeline, but I know I haven't shared it on the podcast. So there's a story about a vase and how you know, a lot of especially women, but it can be men or women, but especially women have this moment where they're this vase and this is my cup that I'm showing you, but they're a vase and they pour, poor, poor, poor, poor, and like the vase falls over, it cracks, it breaks because they're constantly pouring from it. And it was my This was a huge shift for me because I realized at this conference, I realized that you couldn't you can also instead of doing this and this and this and breaking, you can just stand tall and let the world and the goodness and all of the all of the self love like pour into you first, like it's It was a full shift for me because you can let that happen, you can stand tall, you can have it happen, and then it overflows. It's this beautiful thing like I and it was so foreign to me as like a full on people pleaser my whole life. I realized that I was actually a better people pleaser as a somebody that took care of me first, Like you have to take care of loving on yourself, and it will overflow. It will have the impact that you hope it will. But

38:01 that's a scary thing too, because you have to just trust that eventually the base will overflow, because sometimes it feels very very empty because of all all the things. Right, like you talk through all of the different obligations and the overwhelm and just like everything that can happen, and it's like it's a heavy, heavy load, but you can also like find the find the love in it for yourself. So I'm so grateful for our conversation and I could talk, I could talk to you for hours, but I want to know, like what is a relationship or a connection that shaped who you are?

38:41 That would definitely be my husband. He is the most grounding force in my life. That's not okay, there's my son too, right, so you find my family, but definitely my husband. He just he he grounds me and he brings so much perspective to everything, and he just he helps me navigate it. We're a team. We go through this together. So I have to give him credit for for a lot of that. So yeah, love that he's a philosopher too, like he always has. He always has a way of bringing perspective or helping me see things in a different way. So yeah, I think he would be one of those meaningful connections.

39:27 Definitely we need something. We need people like that in our lives who can kind of balance and complement things very well. And I want to know, like, what is a what would you tell your twenty two year old self? If you could. By my twenty two year old self, I would tell her that it's okay to slow down. You are enough and be enough for you. I felt that in my heart. I needed to hear that today. I guess because I literally like I took if you're not watching, first of all, go watch instead of listen because the watching is more fun. But if you're not watching, I literally can see, like I literally like breathe the deep breath and felt better that Madeline was saying that. So, because you're so good at doing that, I want to I want to give you like a megaphone and say, hey, Madeline, if you had everybody listening to you right now, you had this megaphone and you had one message that you could communicate that you know that everybody would hear. What would you say?

40:33 I would say to just be kind to yourself, give your self love, and give yourself grace. You were showing up every single day. Celebrate that, own it, treasure it, and know that everything that you were doing every single day you were doing for you, and you were doing it for every past version of you, and you were doing it for every future version of you. So do it for you. You were enough for you? Who thank you? I I like. We had a full circle moment today. We did. We did, and it's it's beyond any any comprehension, quite honestly. So I have a couple to wrap us up.

41:19 I have a couple of like more quick hitting things you can talk about longer. It doesn't have to be like a one sentence answer just because I said quick hitting, but there's more of like a quick hitting run through with a few questions So I'm gonna start with quick before you forget, start the thing now or wait till you're ready. Start it now, don't wait, go for it if it's in your heart, if it's calling you, go ahead and do it. Because life is happening right now. Stop throwing it in tomorrow land. Okay, we're in today land and we are embracing it. Heck yeah, we are. Quick Before you forget what matters most to Madeline right now, family and my health. What does resilience actually look like on an ordinary Tuesday.

42:11 It's a reminder that I not just me, but anyone. We've overcome so much and we have survived of all of our days. We have survived one hundred percent of every season in our life so far. And it's to trust that that because we've survived all of this so far, we can survive anything coming our way. We've done it before, we will do it again. Do you have a song We talked about songs that made you feel grounded and feel good. Do you have a song of survival? Like? Is there one song in particular that like pops out as like this is the song you put on when you're low and it brings you back.

42:51 I know this might sound weird to say, but anything from nickelback and it just helps. That's not what I wouldn't expected at all, and I here for it. Tell me more. I just find that everything that they sing about is like you can go through a whole life journey just by listening to one of their albums. Because I've especially one of their first breakthrough album I just thought it brought me back and it helped me put things into perspective, and it just reminded me that there is good out there. We can overcome things. I don't know. I just I like the messaging in their songs, so that's good. I can't feel bad after hearing one of their I don't know, just singing along to their songs, I know I'll feel instantly great after because whatever I need to work through, I will work through it with them in their song, and then afterwards I can excel it out.

43:39 Yes, we breathe in the good and excel out the bad. I haven't remember the trick, but I got it, Madeline. Picture your eightieth birthday. Okay, so we've done some past, we've done some present, and now we're going to do some future. So picture your eightieth birthday. I know that the who part is hard, like who do you want there? But the what is important to me. So what do you want people to say about you on your eightieth birthday? I want people as I want people to remember how I made them feel, and I want people to remember that this is someone whom I felt safe, I felt comfortable, and I felt seen, heard and validated. With that for me is if I can do that I've lived the best life ever.

44:34 Yes you have, and I can say already that, of course we're a ways out from eighty right, but I know that you've done that for me, and that's why I'm just so grateful that you're here, Because you know, I had I had a really good conversation with another guest named Jason Fitz and he paid me the I think the best compliment that I've probably gotten in a long time, which was for well, he cried twice in our in our conversation, and he didn't He's a sports guy, so he didn't expect to cry. He was kind of embarrassed that he cried, but then at the end he was grateful that he cried because he cried because he had feelings that needed to come out, and the compliment was that I made him feel emotionally safe and that was honestly, like I put that on my tombstone right like that is that is a good that so we It doesn't surprise me that you said what you said because we're friends and I know you and I know the how. I just know how good you are at that and I am personally grateful for everything that you do to make the world a better place. And I just needed to say that because I can already say as your friend, but as a follower and somebody that's watched what you're building, you know you're you're doing it.

45:55 You're you're you're living a dream and it's been you've been in spray to me. So thank you, honestly, from the bottom of my heart. I appreciate you. Is there anything that I didn't ask that you want to add or share? I think that's something that is just really important to me. Is I just want everyone the biggest takeaway today is be kind to yourself and be kind to someone else. I would just like to challenge everyone to do that today. Be kind to yourself and be kind to someone else. Let's create that ripple let's be the change that we want to see and let's put it into action. Let's go, let's do it.

46:35 It's easier with people that agree and are doing the same thing. It's just like we're all doing it together and that's a beautiful thing. So thank you, Madeline. I appreciate you. And that is all for this time, so I'll see you next time on Click Before You Forget. Thank you for being here with me today on Click Before You Forget. Please like, share and subscribe as that helps the show so much and I really appreciate lot it and I'll. See you next time on Quick Before You Forget. H