Mark: Welcome to another episode of my wake up call. This is thepodcast where I find out a little bit about my guests, and I wanna say finding
out a lot more about them for the podcast. And I'm excited today to have
Michaela Renee Johnson on, and she doesn't know what I'm about to say. Um, one
of the things that I do that keeps me feeling alive every day is when I wake up
in the morning, I say to myself, I can hardly wait to find out what I learned
today. And I have no idea what it'll be, and I'm using the podcast to fulfill
that promise to myself. And then at the end of the day, I say to myself, what
did you learn today? And it keeps my mind alive, keeps me alive. So I'm really
excited about having Michaela on, because you're gonna find out very quickly
why she's a growth mindset, uh, author and speaker. And what that means is
believing that your intelligence and abilities can always improve. You can
always learn to do almost anything. Her new workbook shows you how to make
growth, your default mindset through writing prompts, exercises, and practices
that encourage you to feel confident, take on new challenges and achieve your
goals and her new book. The growth mindset workbook does that. She's a
bestselling author, licensed psychotherapist and host of the top iTunes
podcast. Be you find happy.
Mark:
I that's not grammatical, but I love it. It encouragespeople. It encourages people to speak their truth with grace and live
courageous lives of authenticity. Uh, her initiative, BU you find happy, uh,
uh, holds workshops and conversations on finding happiness in spite of life's
setbacks and has landed her speaking opportunities everywhere. She's also an
adventure in a, in a tail wheel, uh, aviator having traveled to almost 20
countries. And she almost always has a book and a journal under her arms reach
and has a soft spot for inspiring quotes. And there's more to her and you'll
just have to find it out by going to where she's gonna tell us to go. Um, I, I
love what you're about. Uh, I'm gonna share something with you cuz every now
and then I share, and I hope this will be slightly inspiring. If not, you'll
say that was wasted, mark.
Mark:
Uh, , there's an exercise I do when I speakto audiences about getting them in touch with their fixed mindset and what a
growth mindset is, and you're welcome to use it. It always works. So what I'll
do, and you can do this and you can reference me. And if you reference me, I
got it from a friend of mine named Tim Galway. He wrote the inner game of
tennis, inner game of skiing. He was the first sports psychologist. So I credit
him with it, even though he doesn't even remember saying it, but it goes like
this. You're you're there in front of an audience. And you say, I'm gonna give
you the experience of what it's like to have a fixed mindset and a growth
mindset. I, I, uh, um, to do that, I'm gonna give you a quote that you've never
heard. Uh, if you give a person a fish, you feed 'em for a day, but if you
teach a person to fish, you feed them for a lifetime.
Mark:
Oh wait. You're all, you're all snickering. You're alllooking at at each other. You're all smirking. You're all smiling and thinking
to yourself, he is an idiot. I've heard that. No, no, no, no, no. That was your
fixed mindset. If you had a growth mindset, you would've let me finish the
quote. And the quote is, if you give a person a fish, you feed them for a day.
If you teach a person to fish, you feed them for a lifetime. But if you teach a
person to learn, you feed them for a lifetime and they don't have to just eat
fish.
Michaela:
Mark: It's an immediate gotcha. It's yours. Take it. I'm I'm noton the road anymore, but uh, go, go run with it.
Michaela: I like that. Thanks for having me. This is actually my first officialinterview surrounding the growth mindset workbook, which is really exciting.
Um, so many interviews in a lifetime of various different projects, but this is
the very first one for this book. Um, so I'm just really excited to kind of
dust the dirt off. Um, you know, it's something that I spent most of 2021
writing, um, at a time when I was actually becoming a licensed pilot and I
chose to fly a very old school airplane, which is a classic stick in rudder.
Um, so not all the fancy pants, you know, equipment just very rudimentary, um,
requires a very old school mindset. Um, and in the exact same token also
requires a very growth oriented mindset. So I am really excited to be here and
talk about this project and how I really think that, um, I threw myself into it
and how I really think it can help the world.
Mark: Wow. So this is, uh, this is Virgin territory with your,your new book.
Michaela: , The book came out July 26th and I hadtalked to my publicist and said, you know, I've got a lot personally going on
in life and I'm gonna need to put the, the PR campaign on hold, um, until just
now. And so it feels really good to kind of be back in, in this space where I'm
talking about things. Um, but one of the greatest, uh, things that came from
taking a pause was that I really got to enjoy the launch of the book without
having to be wrapped up in the media blitz. So it's been a lot of fun.
Mark: Well, that's good. Uh, I, so I wanna spend time since thisis your first, uh, interview about the book, but I do want to start the way my
listeners and viewers are used to are starting. So tell us the story of
Michaela in terms of an origin story, your, your childhood. Um, did you always
have a growth mindset in you or did you have a fixed mindset and then you found
that that was limiting your life and your happiness. So were there wake up
calls or has this been you all the way through? And you've just discovered
that, oh my God, I've been living a growth mindset my whole life. I may as well
write a book on it. So tell us your story.
Michaela: Um, it's definitely the latter. So I actually, grew upin a 27 foot, fifth wheel with no running water and no electricity in the rural
steer. Nevadas, I learned from a very young age that grit, resiliency and
striving for better was going to be required if I wanted to achieve anything in
my life. And, uh, you know, the way in which I found myself there was that my
parents actually made a very intentional decision, um, to put us in that situation
to enhance their own life. So my dad, uh, was big in the world of construction
and during the massive crash in the eighties, rather than he had a bunch of
spec homes out and rather than declaring bankruptcy, he made a, a very
difficult choice to sell everything that we owned and bought a small parcel of
land and decided to rebuild our lives cash with cash only debt free.
Michaela:
And so, you know, I was 8, 9, 10 years old when all ofthat started to play out in my life. So from a very, very young age, I knew,
um, I was exposed to the idea that, uh, sometimes we have to make very
difficult choices that seem like setbacks in order to launch ahead. It's kind
of like when I was a young girl growing up where I just described, there was
something called an irrigation ditch and we used to love to float down it on
inner tubes in the heat of the summer. But another thing that we used to do was
we would pick blackberries in the late of the summer and often the best
blackberries were on the other side of the ditch. And the best way to cross the
ditch was to put all of our stuff on us, back up, get a running start and jump
over the ditch. Sometimes we have to take steps back in order to go forward to
where we want to be. And so this is all comprising of the growth mindset,
right? Sometimes we think that in order to move forward, we only move forward
and that's not necessarily the case and that's not necessarily true. And I
think this is a really specific area where people get stuck in a fixed mindset
is because they don't take any action unless they can go forward.
Mark: So unpack that a little bit. And how big was the ditch?
Michaela:
Oh, the ditch at, at most areas was, you know, betweenthree and five feet wide. So, but I'll tell you a funny story. I'll tell you a
hilarious story. One time there was a very wide spot in the ditch and I was a
little bit concerned cuz we had jumped over the ditch in a, in a, in a narrower
spot and gotten all of our blackberries and we, you know, walked down the
ditch. And so now we needed to cross back over and the spot where we had a
cross was pretty wide. And so , this is where I really, you really
learn about growth mindset. So I backed up to do my running start and right as
I went to cross, I got scared that it was too wide. And so I went to put the
brakes on and not jump, but I couldn't do it entirely. And so I grabbed this,
this, uh, brush that was right on the side of the, the ditch bank and sure
enough straight . So don't pump the brakes when you're trying to
go forward that's lesson number two.
Mark: That is a great lesson that there is so much in that, inthat, in that lesson in terms of if you're gonna head and you wanna commit
don't stop and mission. Yeah,
Michaela: Let's go. Yep.
Mark: So, uh, but say a little bit more about, you know, one ofthe things that I, uh, one of the things that I asked my guests is, uh, one of
my favorite phrases came from one of my late mentors and he said be a first
class noticer because when you notice things, you connect to them versus when
you just look, watch and see your passive. So I'm noticing the lens of my
camera and I'm noticing that I'm looking into the lens, trying to look into
your eyes. Uh, and so I'm connected to that. So growing up and you can talk a little
bit about what you noticed, uh, with your dad, his decision, and then the
implications that it had on your family and you, and, and then what did you
notice through life that led you to crystallize it into the growth mindset?
Michaela: Well, I think a better analogy would be, you know, I'm an avid hiker and I often, um, can catch myself in a fixed mindset while hiking.
And that's to say, you know, we get oriented in a space where we're kind of
watching the steps in front of us and we're missing what's happening in the
world around us. And so I really try to be mindful of that just even in an
everyday hike, am I, am I staring right down at my feet or am I taking a moment
to take in all of the surroundings and having more situational awareness, um, a
about my environment and what's going on. And I think that that can be just a
really good analogy for the ways in which we do get into a fixed mindset when
it comes to watching what my dad did. You know, I think that the situation that
my folks were in, he didn't, he didn't see much choice other than the next foot
forward.
Michaela: Right. He was just doing the next right thing. Um, becausehe had a young family of three and was, you know, working a lot of, uh,
different end jobs to make ends meet. And so, um, from, from my perspective,
that was more of a work ethic oriented, um, mindset, right? Like that you don't
have the option to quit. There is no quitting. Um, I love that, that old quote
there's no, there's no quitters in baseball, you know? Um, and that's really
how it is. Uh, you know, when I grew up, what I witnessed the most was it
didn't matter how difficult you thought it was going to be. It didn't matter
how challenging you thought it was going to be, uh, quitting. Wasn't an option
now in the process of my own adulthood, I have come to kind of associate some
different thoughts surrounding that.
Michaela:
Um, in that I do think there comes the time when you gotta cut your losses, you gotta cut bait and run. You've gotta throw in the towel.
You've gotta say, oh right, I've tried that. And I think where people get into
really sticky situations in that case is they're so afraid to quit it because
it's failing right. That they get stuck doing something forever that they're
really unhappy in. So I think there's this kind of twofold process to that of,
um, really checking in with yourself. And there's a lot of exercises in this
workbook that specifically address that. Um, and the fact that, you know, just
because you quit something doesn't mean you failed, but recognizing the
difference when it's okay to quit. And when it's not, is more
Mark: Unpack that because, uh, uh, a number of the people listening in words like quit, fail, it haunts them. They, they get frozen it.
So can give us some insight into that and wet our appetite with what people
will discover in the workbook.
Michaela:
Well, there is so much to these heavy, heavy hitters, right? These words do contain a lot of power behind them. And so one of the
things I, I always start by saying is if you're not willing to try, you've
already failed, right? That's that's number one, uh, Elon Musk, we could just
use him as example. I forget the number of businesses that he has had that have
quote unquote failed. Um, however, the point is that he tried them, he put
forth the effort to see where they would go. And I think what's really
important when we're talking, talking about mindset is knowing that all of our
failures lead to our success, right? All of the experiences that we took from
all of the things that didn't serve us or didn't work out like we wanted them
to, they lead to the next big thing. And, um, I've been just, you know, a true
Testament to this in my lifetime, whereby if you had told me 20 years ago, that
I would be, you know, this empowerment, growth expert as coined by the masses,
you know, it's, I would've laughed you out of the room. I would've never
thought that I could have had enough failure to reach that success. And it's
not that I had enough successes to reach that success it's that I did enough
things poorly wrong and learned from them to get to the next spot. And so, um,
if I'm to unpack it, I'd have to start in that spot, which is we have to fail.
We have to fail in order to succeed.
Mark:
Yeah. That reminds me of an anecdote, because this is aconversation, uh, a friend of mine, uh, Jim Mazo, he was the CEO of Abbot, uh,
no advanced medical optics. They made blink ophthalmic solution for corn, uh,
for your eyes. And, uh, I read in the newspaper, this must be 20 years ago, how
their top product was, was hurting the cornea. So he pulled it right off the
shelves without checking with his board of directors or his executives. He just
pulled it. And I called him. And I said, I just wanna tell you how proud I am
to know you, that you pulled your product. And he said to me, mark, I'm giddy
with excitement. I said, what? He said, I'm giddy with excitement. I said, you
better shut the door. He said, what's going on? He said, look, we're a good
company. But every company, every life you make mistakes. And he said, every
mistake in every failure that I've had in life has made me smarter and
stronger. And I'm giddy with excitement because I know this will do it. And I
have no idea what that'll show up and look like. I just know it'll happen. So I
felt what a great way to look at failure as, uh, you know, this is gonna teach
me something and it may teach me something directly related to what I failed
at, or it might teach me something that I can use elsewhere. So has that been
your experience?
Michaela:
Yeah, I mean, I think in general, people like to beattached to the things we've created because we have, we feel we have to hold
onto them. I, I like the analogy of a closet, right? Like we have all this
assortment of clothing. If you want to bring new clothing in, you have to take
some clothing out. And so it can be helpful to take a look at well, what do I
really wear? What doesn't fit me anymore? What, doesn't my style anymore.
What's not the style of the world right now, you know, and just clean the
closet and make room for these new experiences. If your mind is so filled with
what you're working on now, you're not allowing your space safe. You're not
allowing yourself space to create.
Mark:
So share with us some of the nuggets that, uh, uh, I, I thinkI appreciate, and my listeners appreciate hidden and plain sight. I never
would've thought of that nuggets. So can you share any of those from the book
that the people would say, wow, that makes so much sense. And I never would've
thought of it that way.
Michaela:
I think one of the biggest nuggets that I experiencedwhile I was writing the book, um, because I was doing the exercises myself,
practicing them out on the world, around me to see the way that they felt and
the reactions and make sure that they were, um, altruistic to me and what I
wanted to express. And one of them is about criticism. And I think this is an
area where we get into a very fixed mindset. Uh, we don't necessarily want to
take criticism unless it's constructive. Um, and I think that that can be a
really stick sticky situation. Um, we are our own worst critics. I know this to
be a fact. I've seen this all the time in my psychotherapy practice. Um, you
know, the place that we go to with our own negative self-talk and judgment is
pretty intense, but I think it can be incredibly powerful to encourage
criticism and you've gotta be in the right mindset to take it in. But I think a
lot of times we think, oh, I don't wanna, I don't want anything other than a
criticism. And the way that I see that is, you know, criticism is really on the
exact same spectrum as a compliment. It doesn't matter what kind of criticism
it is. Right. And so I think when we start to view these things in the same
way, we can realize that we can take compliments and criticism and find balance
between them negate them and accept them in ways that work for us and not
against us.
Mark:
So give us an example of someone who is a little bit thinskin and, and, and they they're aware enough and self-aware enough that they
know they wanna thicken their skin. And is there an exercise that they might do
so that when someone criticizes them, that they can, uh, not, uh, you know, not
go down the rabbit hole and fall apart?
Michaela:
Yes. It's called the validate and acknowledge, but do notaccept exercise. So if somebody pays me a compliment, if somebody pays me a
criticism, I validate and I acknowledge it, but I don't accept it. So I accept
it once I've processed it and have decided that it serves me in this moment
when we blindly accept criticism constructive or otherwise. And when we blindly
accept compliments is when we get ourselves into a sticky situation. So I like
to say, I can acknowledge and validate. I can say to you, let's just say, you
said, gosh, your hair is perfect today. Right? All sorts of things with those,
with that phrasing that would have my mind spinning, like the word perfect,
right. That, that means does every other day. It's not perfect if, if you're my
coworker and I see you all the time, you know, we can go into these really
sticky places, but I would say, well, thank you for acknowledging my hair
today.
Michaela:
I didn't say I agree with you that my hair is perfecttoday. Right? So let's use it in the reverse. Gosh, you look like you just
rolled out your hair. Looks like you just rolled out of bed today. Well, thank
you for acknowledging that my hair is different to you today. Right? Item, I'm
not accepting it either way. I'm not accepting the criticism. I'm not accepting
the compliment. I'm simply just acknowledging what you've said and when we can
detach from compliments and criticism constructive or otherwise on a scale, we
start to create space for these comments that serve us better. Does that make
sense?
Mark: Yeah. No, it makes a lot of sense. Um, I love languageand, uh, every now and then I, I I'm, I'm oversensitive to certain language
because it's kind of overused. And I'm wondering if, uh, an additional choice
to thank you for acknowledging, uh, my hair, the way it looks, uh, would be to
say, thank you, thank you for noticing my hair and having some thoughts about
it.
Michaela: Yep. I love that.
Mark: Thank you for noticing and having some thoughts about it. Uh, I'll have to think about it. And I don't know if I agree with
you, but, uh, uh, but I, I love that. I love that validate acknowledge, but,
but, but pause and think what you think about it. Uh, it's interesting when I
was reading your introduction, I, I, I didn't get the great workshop be you
find happy and I read it as be, you find happy, be you find happy. That's not
grammatical, but, uh, but I was noticing it the wrong way. It was like, be you
be, you be yourself, find happy. It makes all the sense in the
world. And, and, and it's just sort of an example of, uh, uh, uh, of how, uh,
our, our perceptions can certainly lead us, uh, in a different path. So any
other nuggets, because my listeners are gonna race to buy your workbook the
more with them so that they can find out more.
Michaela: Yeah. I mean, I think that, I think that one of the otherreally key takeaways from the workbook is to identify the relationships that we
keep. Um, I, I feel that an area where we can find ourselves in a very fixed
mindset is believing that we have to be or show up or do for other people,
right? So, you know, mom wants me to be a doctor, so I'm, I'm gonna follow in
her footsteps and be a doctor, or, you know, my, uh, my, my husband wants me to
bring home an income. And so therefore I can't do what I really wanna do, which
is be a stay at home, mom, whatever it might be looking at these relationships
that are around us and the ways in which we create a fixed mindset from what we
think others want or expect of us. Um, it's very difficult to live your true
life when you're living for what everybody else wants you to be doing.
Mark: That is so true. Can, can I offer up another, um, uh,another exercise that you're welcome to use and try if you like it?
Michaela: Yes.
Mark: So, uh, along the lines of what you're saying and exercisethat I sometimes use in presentations is I say, I'd like you to imagine that
your personality is a circle. And in that circle are all the parts of your
personality that are trying to prove show hide, or please prove show hide, or
please. Now what I'd like you to imagine is throwing all those things out of
the circle what's left. And a lot of people will say nothing, cuz all I do is
prove show hide, or please. And if you do that, you don't belong to you. And if
you can prove
Michaela: Show hide, or please, I need to write that down. I'vegotta remember. That's a really good exercise. I love that.
Mark: And, and it's the kind of thing I'm gonna,
Michaela: I'm gonna steal it. I'll I'll tell everybody I got it from mark.
Mark: Well that's all right. Oh you, you can't but the idea, theidea is, is it's a good thing to do when you're taking a long walk because if
you eliminate those things and just be intentional about just letting them go,
you, you may discover a calling. That's been calling out to you for decades,
but you couldn't hear it because it got a busy signal and the busy signals you
were too busy, proving, showing, hiding or pleasing makes sense. Wow,
Michaela: That's really profound. I like that a lot. And I'm, I'm a big fan, especially in the work I do as psychotherapist. I'm a big fan of
these kind of tangible exercises where, you know, we put something down on
paper. Um, an exercise that we do through the couples Institute is we have each
partner hold a piece of paper and they associate with the piece of paper, what
is most important to them outside of their partner and their children, most
important thing. And um, each of them has the opportunity to do it and then
they hold the paper and they try to decide by communicating who gets to keep
the paper. And from as a couple's therapists, it's really interesting to see
the conflict resolution play out, but more importantly is how they come up with
what is most important to them. And it's not very often that people pause and
reflect on that in that way. You know, we tend to be such a busy culture that
we really don't spend a lot of time in hindsight or in reflection thinking
about these kinds of things. And so the workbook does a lot of that. The
workbook really challenges people to sit with themselves and explore things
that they might not have otherwise thought about.
Mark: That's great. Um, can I give you, you know, I I'm retiredas a therapist, so, but you know, I was a therapist for 45 years. Uh, one of my
focuses with suicide prevention and none of my patients died by suicide. And
uh, uh, also I, uh, in the 19 late 1980s, early nineties, I was on Oprah. I was
on the today show the New York times because I had created something called
recouping therapy, helping divorce couples to get back together again.
Michaela: Oh, wow. That's wild.
Mark: Well, that's why it made all those news things. And Ishould have, I should have just stuck with therapy, but you know, I was, I was
focused on suicide prevention, life and death. I was training hostage, uh,
negotiators, but I, let me, I'll give you an exercise that was like magic in my
couple's therapy work. So might I share that with you?
Michaela: Yes. Do I need a pencil? I'm I have to get a pencil.
Mark: No, no, no. I, I, I'm sending you the video.
Michaela: Okay.
Mark: So what I central to mycouple's work and I, in one of my books, I think it was my second book was
called the six secrets of a lasting relationship. How to fall in love again and
stay there. Six secrets of a lasting relationship. And what I talk about in the
book is something called em, pathogenic therapy, because you can't be empathic
and angry at someone at the same moment. Cuz when you're empathic, you're
curious about what they're feeling, we're thinking. Yep.
Michaela: And when you're yeah, the initiator require methods. Yes.
Mark: And when you're angry, you're venting. So the way the em,pathogenic therapy worked and it was magical. So if you and a couple would come
in, I would see the one who felt that they were being dragged in. And so, uh, I
would say to the person who dragged them in and, and it's changed now sometimes
now husbands drag in wives and it used to be wives dragged in husbands and now
it's about equal, but imagine a couple comes in and I'm thinking way back then
when a man comes in and you can tell that he doesn't wanna be there. I would
say to the wife, if I were to ask your husband, be your husband. If I were to
ask your husband why he thinks this is gonna be a Royal waste of time and
money, what would he say?
Mark: And she could almost always say it accurately. Well, wellhe'd say, uh, you know, that he's just gonna get screamed at and he can get
that for free at home or uh, he's gonna say such and such. And
what would happen is the husband would engage well if she knows that, why does
she do that? And, and then, uh, and then I, when I saw he would get engaged, I
would say if I were to ask your wife, what was the, the absolute worst moment
in the relationship for her that if it would, were to repeat itself, it would
be over for her and he could almost always bring it up.
Mark: And so, so in other words, by, by causing each person tobe empathic to the other person, uh, they, the other person leaned in. And I
remember one time I said to a, uh, a husband and wife, I said to the husband,
what was the, if I were to ask her, what was the worst time in the
relationship, uh, that if would ever happened again, it would be over and she's
there just sort of sitting kind of calmly. And he looked at me and he said she
would bring up when she had breast cancer. And I had an affair with my
secretary and she opened her eyes. She started crying because you know, he, and
what happened is he felt so ashamed. They never talked about it. And he just
felt that she blew, he blew it off, but really what it was is he felt so
ashamed. He never brought it up. And then, uh, and she's sobbing and he looked
at me and he said, what kind of an animal would do that to his wife when she
has breast cancer. So can you picture the power of em pathogenic therapy?
Michaela: Yeah, absolutely. Wow. That's profound. Uh, how did it,how did it resolve,
Mark: Uh, well that resolved, you know, pretty well, the trackrecord for the decoupling and I was on Oprah and the today show, it was almost
always successful because of the way I screened people. I said, look, you've
been divorced, uh, unless you're ready to be contr, unless you're ready to
really own up to your part in the divorce.
Michaela: Mm-hmm,
Mark: You know, and unless you're, uh, ready to not only own upto it, but kind of make amends in both directions. I said, because if either of
you is gonna resort to finger pointing, it's about the other person, I'm not
gonna see you cuz it won't work.
Michaela: Right. Might be criticizing stonewalling, all that stuff.Yeah. Wow. That's really, that's really spectacular. Um, I'll have to role play
that out with some people that I know and, and, and see what my experience of
that is. That's really, uh, that's really interesting. I, I think there's
probably something very profound to that. I think that the, you know, the
empathic listening and the listening with curiosity and not to fix or solve is
definitely the key to this couple's work for sure. Um, but I haven't thought
about it in terms of kind of drawing attention to probably one of the major
events that's sent the relationship into a downward trajectory. It's really
interesting. I like that.
Mark: Thank you. Yeah. Be because, because what happens is, uh,see each person is afraid that the other one's gonna bring it up and then slam.
But if you get the perpetrator to bring it up
Michaela: Uhhuh,
Mark: You know, then it, it changes the whole dynamic and the,the other person won't slam them because they're owning up to it.
Michaela: Right. They're cuz they're coming forth in that way. Oh,that's very, that's very good. Interesting. I like that.
Mark: Well, thank you. I'll tell you where it's really amazing.Uh, uh, one of my commitments is te uh, uh, stopping teen suicide. And when
teenagers would sometimes come in with their parents, the teenager would often
be in the corner of the L-shape couch with his or her, you know, uh, uh, hat
pulled down and their arms crossed. But what I did, em, pathogenic therapy,
there is, I would say to the parents, I'd say, if I would ask your teenager why
they are furious at being dragged in here and why they think this is going to
accomplish nothing and just make it worse, what would they say
Michaela: That they're just gonna get yelled at? And that theparents are there to try to have you fix the kit.
Mark: Yeah. And when the parents say that the kids, you, theadvisor goes up, this is really interesting, you know? And so when I, and I
would do it enough to engage the teenager and I'd say, uh, if I were to ask
your parents, what is something that you did that scared the out of them? What
incident would they bring up? And they might bring, well, you know, I was
cutting on myself. I was doing such and such, but it's, it's really an
interesting way to just flip the involvement.
Michaela: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Um, I do a lot of modeling about with that kind of language with my parents and teens and same kind of thing.
You know, I often when the parents call and say, I want you to fix my kid, I
say, okay, that's great, but I have to start with you first.
Mark: Yeah, absolutely. And,
Michaela: Uh, at first they're very resistant, butthen once they're in session and it's, and they're seeing and it's coming and
then their child is starting to open up again, it's starting to make sense.
Mark: Yeah. So there's a podcast and I occasionally, you know,speak to my, you know, my listeners, uh, but there's someone I had on the show
that I think it's where it would be worth if you listen, his name is a Dar
Stickle
Michaela: And okay.
Mark: He has an organization called trust something or other.And he was, uh, and, and, and it was interesting. He's he's blind. I mean, he
can see six inches in front of him, but his, his, he is so wise, it was, it was
mesmerizing. So for instance, here's, here's a taste of it. Uh, let's say you
have a kid, a teenager, and the teenager is always late to things with you. You
know? Um, if I, if you can imagine you have a teenager and the teenager's
always late, you know, and, and they're there waiting for the lecture. What is
something that you imagine you, you might say to the teenager, if they're
always late for you,
Michaela: The teenager is always late.
Mark: What do you imagine as a parent that you might say to theteenager,
Michaela: The therapy parent, right. Would say something to the effect of, you know, I really love it when we're able to leave together on
time, because I really enjoy spending time with you in a way where I'm not feeling
like I have to be disappointed that we're not getting someplace on time. The,
uh, stressed out parent might say, screw it. I'm leaving. I'm getting in the
car. I'm outta here. Do what you want. You can spend the day here. I'm done.
Mark: And I would've had the therapeutic response and maybe thestress out response here was his response. He smiles at his teenager and says
you were worth the weight.
Michaela: love, it
Mark: Changed everything. It changed everything. Isn't thata mazing? Well,
Michaela: Think about loss of life, right? Like if something were tohappen in the way of a car accident, on the way wherever we were going, would
it have been worth the yelling and all of that, that ensued right before you
left? Yeah, the answer is,
Mark: Yeah, but, but this was not, this was not a dramaticthing, but, but, uh, I would encourage you and my listener to go re-listen to,
uh, Darrell Stickle cuz he was, he was just, uh, phenomenal. And, and so are
you,
Michaela: I love that. I really love that idea. I love the way of engaging in, um, counter. I'm not gonna say counterintuitive ways because I
think in our gut, we know these things to be our truth. I think we allow other
things to dictate and control, you know, emotions, anger, et cetera, um,
frustration. And, uh, it's amazing when we show up in the world with a slightly
different twist, how much more beautiful the world becomes?
Mark: You know, I, I, I I'll share one last thing. And, andagain, this is not gonna be like your other interviews. You're gonna stay on
track. You'll talk about the book, but my, my interviews are all like this. I
mean, that's what I, I, I guess makes them memorable, but I'm gonna share with
you the most profound thing I ever learned from a supervisor, uh, cuz I used to
see, you know, suicidal people and, and he said, when someone comes in and
they're just being difficult and you're, and you're getting frustrated counter
transference, if you wanna call it that. And so when you're with them, ask
yourself, uh, how did I feel before the person came in? I was feeling pretty
good. How am I feeling now? I'm feeling really frustrated. And what do you said
is if you're feeling frustrated, your patient is wanting you to feel it so they
don't feel alone with it. And so one of the things he taught me and this was
the script is say to a patient you're really doing a great job, which no one
tells them. You're really doing a great job of helping me to understand and
feel what it's like to be you and to feel so frustrated and helpless and angry that
nothing will work. And I just wanted to tell you that, I'm sorry, it hurts so
much.
Michaela: I like that. I like that.
Mark: So profound because, and then what happens is when youshare that you get it off you instead of being angry and when you get it off,
you inviting them into this empathic thing, they just start to cry, you know,
because they're not feeling it alone. And uh, and uh, and you're showing
compassion
Michaela: And they're open. I can think of a few ways that thatw ould probably work very well lot and I can think of a few
clients, teenagers that I have where it might sound something like you're doing a really great job of helping me understand what it feels like to be completely ignored.
Mark: Look, it's all in the tone.
Michaela: ,
Mark: You're hear, you're hearing it for the first time. But ifI were to say to you, you're doing a really good job. If it sounds like it's a
bad answer, but what I, but what he, what he taught me, he was this just
incredibly wise. Psychoanalyst is what he was telling me is how do you feel
feeling frustrated with the patient? Uh, and they're stuck and you're stuck not
being able to help them. What does that feel like? Well, I hate the way it
feels. Well, you're getting a taste of how they feel 24 7.
Michaela: Yeah.
Mark: And you're just feeling a,
Michaela: Yeah.
Mark: So if you could imagine what that feels like 24 7
Michaela: And be empathic empathetic to their situation, right?
Mark: Yeah, yeah.
Michaela: Yeah. I like that.
Mark: Well, that's been your supervision, uh, for the day. Uh,
Michaela: I'm like 11 years outside ofsupervision, but I, but I do work with team members, so it's always nice to
have a good mentor. Gosh, it's been a while since I've had a one on one.
Mark: Well, well look, I look, I appreciate your allowing theconversation to go wherever it, uh, wanted to go. And, um, you know what I tell
my guests who aren't aware of this, but my listeners are, I say, you know,
these conversations are meant to meander and they're meant to wet the appetite
of my listeners and viewers to wanna find out everything about you, not just
what you're doing now, but, uh, uh, and you've done an amazing job. You've more
than wet their appetite, my appetite. And if you're listening in, uh, go check
out her website, go check out her book, go check her up. So where can people
find out more about you? And what's the best way to connect?
Michaela: Yeah, they can go to beyoufindhappy.com.
Mark: That's pretty simple. I, I appreciate that. So, uh, sothank you for being on. And, uh, there's a little Quip that I give, uh, that I
it's sort of a compliment. Uh, there's a Quip. I give about marriage where I
say, you know, when you feel tolerated by your partner, it feels pretty awful.
But then when you realize how difficult you can be, it's a gift. So thank you
for that's
Michaela: True.
Mark: Thank you for tolerating MI. Thank you
Michaela: Said was wonderful. Mark. Thank you for being my firstgrowth mindset interview. .
Mark: Here we go. And thank you to our listeners. Please gocheck out, uh, BU find happy and, uh, everything else that's McKayla. And, uh,
and thank you McKayla. And to our listeners, uh, when wake up calls come your
way, don't be afraid of them. Don't beat up on yourself, but you know, when the
next bus that comes around, says my wake up call, just get on it for crying out
loud and jump over the ditch. So until next time everyone take care.