036 - Yanet Borrego on Coaching and Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself

00:00 John You're listening to The Present Professional, where we explore the intersections of personal and professional development. To change your experience of life and work with every episode. So tune in, grab your notebook, and let's go!

00:20 Tony So tune in, grab your notebook, and let's go! Let's go!

00:26 John Welcome to another episode of The Present Professional. Today we're here to talk about coaching and how it relates to breaking the habit of being yourself. And we'll go through a lot of our journeys and how that we broke old habits to become who we are today. But first and foremost, we have a special guest with us today, Yanet Borrego. I'm super excited to share her experience with you guys and her energy, especially. And just to give you a little background on her, she's a former engineer and consultant, turned into career mindset and clarity coach. So her voluntary transition from nine years in corporate, where she worked for two global Fortune 500 companies to full-time entrepreneurship, inspired her to continue coaching and mentoring individuals to find their purpose and step into who they're meant to be. She's also the host of With Clarity and Purpose podcast and has been featured in Business Insider and Next Advisor with Time Magazine. So we are super excited to have her with you today. And we were actually at the same company before at ExxonMobil, but I did not know her back then. So that's another aside. Anything else there, Yanet, that I missed that you want to include for our listeners? 

01:51 Yanet I think you have it all, John and Tony. Thank you so much for having me here today. And I cannot wait to dig deeper into our journeys, the topic of the podcast. I'm so excited to be here. So thank you so much.

02:05 John Awesome. Can you, and I guess just starting it off with what you just mentioned there, what does the audience need to know about your journey?

02:18 Yanet  I think my journey, John, when I look at my journey and my life, it has been a lot of reinventing myself over and over, rewriting my story over and over and reminding myself that it's never too late to actually dream and embrace that new identity that we are all building toward. As you can sense, I have an accent. So I'm originally from Cuba. And when I was nine years old, we moved from Cuba to Mexico. That was the first time at a very young age where I had to reinvent myself. I didn't know anyone. I didn't know the country. So it was my first experience of just arriving in a country where I didn't know anyone and just showing up in my authentic self, who I was at the moment. When I was 12 years old, we left Mexico and we ran away because we didn't want to go back to Cuba. As you know, Cuba is a communist country. There is a very strict control of the people going in and out. And in the US, where you have the freedom to live in another country, if you leave Cuba, which at that time, when we went to Mexico, we left Cuba legally because my stepfather and my mom, they were working for the Cuban government in Mexico. But after three years, we were supposed to go back to Cuba. So three years came, I was 12 years old, and my mom tells me, Janette, we are not going back to Cuba, but you cannot tell your friends, you cannot tell our family, you cannot tell your stepfather, who lives with us, because this is highly confidential. And the thing with my stepfather was that he was working for the Cuban national security. And also, to be honest, the relationship was damaged. He had been cheating on her, et cetera. And 12 years old, she's like, in one week, when we are supposed to go back to Cuba, we are not going to get in the plane. We are actually going to run out of pay. And at 12 years old, I was like, OK, I mean, I trust you. You know, honestly, I just didn't process much of it. I think now as an adult, that hits me. And I know I have many areas that I'm still healing from and transforming from and just breaking the habit of being that old identity from my childhood, even areas that I'm not even conscious about. So that's the beauty of this topic today. So from there, we ran away. We hid for six months in Nuevo León, Mexico, another city in Mexico. And we were hiding because, of course, we didn't want the government to find us because we literally escaped. And after hiding six months, we actually asked for political asylum in the border, in the Laredo-Texas border. And then from there, we were granted that asylum and we moved to Puerto Rico, which is a U.S. territory. So it's part of the U.S. And again, another chance to reinvent myself being 12 years old. My mom was doing the same, of course, reinventing myself. No friendships. We didn't have any resources. It is even when I look back on my immigrant story is the story of every entrepreneur too. Right. Like getting there with no contacts, no resources, no mentorship and figuring things out in order for you to walk towards that vision of freedom, of creation, of achieving your dreams and making an impact, whatever that is for you or the listeners. As long as you have that vision, you don't need to know the how. You don't need to know necessarily the next step. As long as you hold that, the how will unfold as long as you're taking action. Right. So Puerto Rico reinventing myself, spent 12 years there, studied chemical engineering because I loved chemistry. And one of my vision really early since I was a child was to be able to give back to my mom. And my family in Cuba, my mom left everything she had financially, resource wise, family wise. I didn't get to see my family for 12 years when we made that move. So it was very risky. And then after 12 years, we went back to Cuba. So she left everything she had. She was willing to sacrifice and give up everything she had for us to have a bigger vision of freedom and for me to be able to choose what I wanted to study. So for a long time in my life, John, my only vision was to get to a place, John and Tony. My only vision was to get to a place where I could give back to my family. So loved chemistry and people were like, engineers make a lot of money. And I'm like, chemistry, chemical engineering. I don't know what what they do, but I'm going to make it happen. A lot of money. Chemistry has to be involved. Let's go. And of course, I didn't have anyone who mentored me. My mom was in survival mode. I realized recently that my whole childhood, I was in survival mode. And that's still a pattern that I'm trying to overcome by breaking the habit of being myself. And studying chemical engineering did great. Followed all the recipe for success. High GPA, being in leadership roles, lots of internships in the oil and gas industry. And I loved it. I loved the journey. When I got there to my first corporate role within the first year, I realized that even though I was perceived as successful, even though I had followed this exact checklist that everyone gave me, which success was about, even though I was there, six figures, giving back to my mom, my family in Cuba. Even though I was there, I still felt empty. I still felt that lack of fulfillment. I still felt that I was lost, to be honest with you. And at that moment, I realized that the formula of success that I was following was the one given to me, wasn't the one I created for myself. And in all of those years, I had never asked myself, and no one had ever asked me, who do you want to be? What are the things that make you happy? What are the things that you're passionate about? My whole vision and mission was giving back to my family, and I successfully got there. But in the process, I forgot about the foundation. I forgot about myself. What does Yannett want? And in this awakening or realization, I started to experiment and gain clarity on what that was for me. For the first time, John and Tony, I was getting to know myself. For the first time in 22 years, 21 years, I think it was 22, I was getting to know myself, because that's something that no one teaches us. And from there has been a whole reinvention from being in corporate nine years, while creating my side coaching business. I experimented many things until I found what resonated with me. So I've been working on this process of reinventing myself over and over, over and over. And I still am. I think this is a lifelong journey. So that's where the topic becomes really relevant to my life, what I'm doing. I mean, both of your journeys, too, based on the background you gave me.

10:40 John Wow.

10:42 Tony Wow. I'm definitely going to go back and listen to this again, because that was so powerful, what you just said. Every little piece of your story, every detail, that was so powerful. So thank you for sharing that. I have a question for you. So for the listeners that are hearing this and they're resonating with you, and what you're saying, what would you tell the people that have this fear or they're scared to start the process of reinventing themselves? Maybe they resonate with what you said about corporate and maybe their fulfillment level. How do they start the process?

11:17 Yanet I think you got to start the process by experimenting. A lot of people want clarity and a lot of people want to go from zero to a hundred. I've been there. I still am sometimes. And gaining clarity is a byproduct of experimentation. I remember still being in refining as a process engineer. I was working night shifts from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. for 13 days straight. The 14th, I would get off. Like crazy. Not even operators get that schedule because they have unions, but engineers, well, we got to show up. So I remember being in night shifts and just like searching in Google, hey, like what can I try in order for me to help people to create an impact? And funny enough, I came across multi-level marketing and I didn't know what it was. So I tried it. I mean, you got to be willing to experiment. You got to be willing to get a little bit out of that comfort zone and start trying what does it and start trying what resonates with you. It's not going to be perfect. You're not going to go from zero to a hundred. I think I was in multi-level marketing for like three months. I tried two different companies. I was like, this is not it. What's the next thing? I went to a Tony Robbins Unleash the Power Within event and I started to connect more with that community of entrepreneurs. And I started to see for the first time that it was possible. So another thing is surrounding yourself with people that are out of the context that you're within so you can find data in your brain that is possible for you too. Because honestly, I remember being in corporate and we would all complain our corporate jobs and we wouldn't do anything about it. And I just remember having this heaviness in my body of I need to do something about it. I don't know what, but I got to move. And honestly, Tony, I didn't take a big step, a risky step until crisis because we have been there so many times. We wait until we hit rock bottom to take a decision that we know is in alignment with ourselves. So I remember working these night shifts. I was burnt out physically, mentally, emotionally. One, because I didn't enjoy it either, to be honest with you. I mean, the salary was amazing. The hours were not. The work, I didn't enjoy the environment. I didn't enjoy, but I was like, you know, resilience is my superpower. Let's go. Let's push. This is what I worked for. And I remember one day I was in my house just working from home because we were restarting the process unit in the refinery. So I was like, you know, like looking at the parameters, the reactor temperature, the pressure, all of these things. And my mom tells me, Janet, I need to go to a grocery store. So I was like, okay, 20 minutes because I'm afraid these people are going to call me. The other thing about a process engineer is that you are on call 24-7. 2 a.m. there is an environmental release. You'll get called. 3 a.m. something happened. You'll get called. And you are on call. So you got to answer that call, right? So I had so much anxiety around this role of being called. And I remember we were grocery shopping and suddenly I feel a huge pressure in my chest and my left arm just went to sleep. And at that moment I was like, I think this is a heart attack. I'm going to completely die. And I ended up going to the emergency room and the doctor was like, all you need is to drink some wine tonight. That was a panic attack. And I'm like, I waited nine hours for you to give me the results and tell me this. Are you joking? Like what's going on? It was my first and only panic attack. But to be honest, my body was already telling me that this was happening. So I think part of the process is to start listening at yourself, what your body is telling you, what your mind is telling you. And that moment of crisis was the one for me to put a stop into my misery, put a stop into a craziness. And I remember the next day I went back to work and I was like, I'm not telling the listeners to do this. Okay, this is my journey. But I did tell my boss, I'm going to live here because I'm not enjoying this and I'm super burnt out unless you transfer me to an organization that I'm more aligned with. And my boss was like, sure, you need to do the work. You need to find the organization. You need to find a supervisor. Give me that information and then I'll connect you with that organization. Right. Which was an amazing lesson of you got to take responsibility for that transformation. You got to take responsibility to make things happen. So I'm thankful for that supervisor that she was like, okay, you got to do it yourself. I'll help you get there. Which is not common. Okay. But I think because I said, I'm going to leave, I'm done. She took it seriously because getting out of refining to supply chain in that company is like almost mission impossible. I don't know if that has changed now, but it took me to hit rock bottom to say, I'm going to prioritize myself. I'm going to prioritize what I want. And I wouldn't recommend the listeners to go that route, but to be more proactive, at least a little bit to make those aligned decisions and start experimenting with what you want. I mean, I started this back in 2013 and I transitioned from my corporate job to full-time entrepreneurship in 2021. So it was like counting the internships and everything. It was like nine years of experimenting, building my side coaching business until I took the leap of faith because it doesn't matter what, it's still a leap of faith. But as long as you have that vision, you continue working towards it. And it works out as long as you're there. Right. So yeah, that was a long answer.

17:55 John Perfect. That's beautiful. I'm curious how coaching and how moving into that space when it came to the training material and some other self-education materials that you were reading and experiencing and incorporating into your side coaching practice, like how that influenced you being able to hold your vision, well, define your vision and then hold it. And also take some of those steps. And when you mentioned the self-awareness of seeing the things that are happening in your body, in your mind, that takes an objective view. And I'm curious of how that training, maybe NLP specifically, influenced that journey. And actually, before that, maybe give the listeners an introduction into what NLP is.

18:55 Yanet Yeah, I love that. I love that. So NLP is neuro-linguistic programming. I always make the analogy of a computer or an iPhone or whatever. And if you have a computer, your computer is full of programs who have a programming code that delivers a certain result. If in Excel you put some parentheses, 2, 2, it will give you 4. So you have all these formulas, all this programming behind a computer or your phone in order for the applications or anything else to have the functionality you desire. Right. So NLP is that programming, that background programming you don't see, because you don't see all the Java code, all the programming code. You just get the result. That's what you're seeing when you work with a computer or an iPhone. So neuro-linguistic programming is that subconscious programming code in your brain that is happening even in the moments you're not conscious of that gives you the results that you're experiencing in your life. Sometimes that programming or that set of strategies or patterns is not working for you. So NLP provides you the formula for you to kind of reprogram your mind, your brain at the deepest subconscious level for you to achieve the desired outcomes, the desired results. There are 100 plus NLP techniques. Like it's just crazy. From releasing baggage at the subconscious level, right? From your childhood, if you believe in past lives, like I use in my breakthrough sessions, what I call timeline therapy in order to release that baggage subconsciously. And it's really cool because clients often say that it feels like a rebirth. And even though it feels like a rebirth and a moment, when you really notice the change is when you are in a situation where you used to respond differently and now you have this out of body experience like, wait, this is different than how I used to react or respond. But from that depth to literally stop snoozing your alarm, there is a technique called the switch pattern to help you let go of that strategy of snoozing the alarm because if you look, if you're a snoozer, if you look at the pattern, you do the same thing over and over. You open your, like the alarm goes up, you open your arms, you don't think about it unconsciously, it's like snooze. Like it's just an unconscious, that's the thing with unconscious programming. It's not something you intentionally do. The program is running your life. You are not running the program. So NLP is just a tool, basically a set of skills, a set of tools to help you take control of that program. That sometimes is not delivering those results that you want. But I love your question because my first coaching certification was back in 2015 with the John Maxwell team and honestly, they don't know what coaching is. Okay. Their promotion was all about, hey, like live a free life and if you want to leave your job, you can use this. And I'm like, I mean, that sounds amazing. Let's do it. And I invested like, I don't know, like $10,000 or more on this thing that I didn't know very well what it was, but I'm like, I'm buying the vision. Okay. I'm like a big picture person. I'm there. That vision resonates with me and I need to do something about it. You know, that's when you know you're ready for change, when you're like, let's go, let's take action. And I went, one of the speakers, which was a coach of that organization, was explaining what coaching was. And he was explaining that coaching was like this person, a coach is a guide that navigates you towards your inner wisdom that allows you to navigate all the resources you have within yourself already. It's not that a coach doesn't tell you what to do. It teaches you how to think, how to start approaching things by using the resources you have within yourself already. I heard that, John, and I was like, that resonated fully with me. I was like, okay, that means all the resources I need to succeed, they are within myself. Like that was such a comforting feeling. Just knowing like, it's not a lack of resources. It's a lack of resourcefulness. It doesn't matter that my moment I didn't have, I didn't have money, didn't have contacts. We somehow figured out. So when I look back on my life, that has been my mom, my biggest hero, has been one of those prime examples of even if I don't have the mentorship, I can figure it out. If I hold the vision, I'll find it somehow in the path, but I got to start taking action. I cannot wait for someone to save me or someone to show up. I got to start saving and transforming myself before someone else shows up. The thing with that also is that we all have blind spots, right? Even us coaches, we have blind spots. So a coach is someone that helps you navigate through your internal resources for you to achieve those results and also sheds light on those blind spots that you need to become aware of in order for you to break that pattern that hasn't been delivering the results you want. That's the power of coaching. I was telling both of you before we started, there is this amazing author, scientist that I follow, Dr. Joe Dispenza. He's a doctor. And what I love is that he does a lot of research. He has teams of scientists that study meditation, mindfulness, manifestation, right? So all of these things are not woo-woo anymore. They are backed up with data because they have been heavily studied already. And he said that 95% of who we are by the age of 35 years old is a memorized set of beliefs, behaviors, and emotional reactions. So that means that most of us, right, what we are doing is we are showing up every single day with the same patterns every single day, choosing, choosing, behaving, feeling, and acting in very similar ways. Now, if we continue following that pattern, we'll continue getting the results we have been getting. What a coach helps you with is allowing you to be aware of those patterns and helping you to break through those patterns so you can create new ones that empower you to get to where you want to be. So you can be who you want to be and do the things that you're meant to do in this life. That's the power of coaching. And he has this amazing book, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, which resonates so much with this because in order to change and transform for the better, we got to shed those layers of past programming. Instead of learning more, we got to unlearn more. We got to let go of what we think we are supposed to be so we can embrace who we are meant to be. And we get to define that ourselves. That's one of the most challenging parts, right? Wow. Flames, flames, flames, flames, flames. Flames, I love it. Yeah, so that's why we, I mean, the three of us, we are so passionate about coaching because we want to help people to transform their lives by taking responsibility for their results because those patterns are the ones driving those results. And the three of us, we have the skills, we have the training. We do this with ourselves. Like we lead with integrity. We cannot coach other people if we are not coaching ourselves first. And so I think that's why we are so passionate about this industry. And that's why we're here together right now.

27:46 John Exactly.

27:48 Tony I was flipping through the book earlier before we started and I saw something that popped out to me. I'd love for you to touch on this a bit because you said it in spaces, but I want you to kind of go in on this a bit. And it said that change is a choice instead of a reaction. And I was like, change is a choice instead of a reaction. So it's like to me, I'm hearing it like you can receive something or something can happen in your life and you can react to it, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to change. So you have to choose to change. And so I was interested to know what you thought about that, especially as you've read the book and follow Joe, Dr. Desponses. So I'm just curious about what you think about change being a choice as opposed to being in a reaction.

28:34 Yanet  Yeah, it's so true because let's go back to that example of waiting until crisis hits or we touch rock bottom to make a change. We are reacting at that time, even if that change is the most aligned, even if we were meant to do that change, you are reacting in that moment because now the pain is your motivator versus an aspiration that you have to continue moving towards that vision. The tricky part about pain being a motivator, and by the way, pain is an amazing short term motivator. With pain, you're ready to change, but you're reacting. The tricky part about pain is that pain will motivate you, but when that pain goes away, what is your motivation now? That's when change gets to be a choice because now the choice is that one of defining why you want to sustain that change, what is the positive vision that you want to move towards instead of something you want to move away from. That's why I recommend people, if you hate your job, you want to work on changing yourself first, if you can within that job, changing your mindset or maybe changing to another job within corporate. I'm telling you based on my experience, funny enough, I once tried to leave corporate when I hated my job because I didn't have anything to move towards. I wasn't unsuccessful, so I wasn't successful at quitting my job, which is a really funny story, but I think it was purely reaction on my end. When change is actually a decision, you are proactive towards that change, and you are embracing your intuition and what you feel, and you have trust and faith that that is the right answer for you. Part of change being a decision is also not comparing yourself with others or not letting others tell you what to do, but instead you're figuring out that for yourself, which will be different for each one of us. And I think what comes to me is just be proactive. That's how we can make a decision of changing and also surrendering to the change, okay? Because so many times we are attached to the familiarity of what we know, even though what we know may be toxic or not helpful, because it's familiar, we feel deeply attached to it. Change means chaos is going to happen, not in a bad way, but you're going to disrupt your identity. We are going to shake things up and make it uncomfortable, right? One of the questions that I love asking myself, because to be honest with you, Tony and John, we make change and decisions when we are reacting is because we are making decisions out of short term satisfaction versus long term fulfillment. That's a reaction. Reaction is like, oh, it feels good right now. I don't care about the future or what's going to happen. I'm going to do it now or I have pain right now. And then you react to it. But really when you start making decisions based on long term fulfillment, that's when you build that muscle within yourself that you're capable of making change a choice and making change proactive. So I always ask myself when making decisions to change, I ask myself several questions. One of them is, am I making this decision out of fear, which is pain or out of love, something that I'm moving towards, right? That's to decide if your motivator is moving away from or moving towards what we have discussed before. And the other decision, which is a future pacing technique is, okay, what are the consequences of me making this decision 10 minutes from now? Okay, it feels good. I'm in the familiar zone, whatever. I don't have to do it. What about 10 months from now? Then starts getting tricky because you're like, well, I'm going to feel the same pain. I'm going to be frustrated with myself. Okay, 10 years from now, if you stay in that same position, reacting, reacting, what are the consequences of your decision? Many times they are not good for you in alignment. And also having the courage of actually when you answer those questions to start choosing differently, to start choosing differently than how you have chosen before. And that takes a lot of practice and courage, but the moment is now to make it happen. And again, I didn't go from corporate to full-time entrepreneurship in my first year. But I started choosing differently even within my corporate journey. From engineering, I went to supply chain. Do you know how many people were like, are you crazy from an engineer to supply chain? You know that's a downgrade, right? And I'm like, hey, this is my path. It's in full alignment with me. I'm going to be so much fulfilled. I still have my same salary. I don't care. It's going to be okay. Six figures, totally fine with me. So I went to supply chain. Because I did something that made me happy, fulfilled. In the four years I was there, I ended up earning more money than the people who stayed back in refining, which hated their job. Because now I was in an environment that was supportive and I was loving what I was doing. I started showing up better and better and better. And I climbed up pretty quickly in the four years. So I think when you make decisions that are aligned, it's a matter of time when you start attracting that abundance financially, spiritually, physically, mentally. But sometimes we are so short-term minded and we got to look at the bigger picture. We got to zoom out instead of being reactionary, like you mentioned. So good. 

35:05 John  Those are some really great parameters for decision making. I love the questions that you ask yourself. And I think that that's a good place for our listeners to tune into themselves, to start tuning into some of the decisions that they're making and seeing, am I looking out at this vision? And we've been talking a lot about fulfillment and about holding the vision. And how do you know when something is aligned with your vision? I don't want to say how did you create your vision, but it's more like how are you continuing to recreate your vision?

35:55 Yanet I love that so much, John. Oh my God. And this is a topic I'm highly passionate about. Let's talk about why. Having a vision, which I called a compelling future, it's so important because in the worst days of our lives, the only hope we have is the hope of a better tomorrow. When sometimes you're like, I'm going to take a nap or sleep, tomorrow will be better. So holding that vision is your bigger why for you to, whenever you're in challenges, obstacles, you're like, wait, wait, wait. Let me see where I was moving towards. That's why the compelling future or the vision is so important. Because life is full of ups and downs. That's the beauty, that's the balance, that's the duality of life. And we got to embrace that. And even in the downs, we got to remind where we are moving towards. That's the vision. Now, here's the thing. Sometimes when people think of vision, they think of what they want to have. Hey, I want to have that promotion. I want to manifest that ideal partner so I can feel loved. What they're after is not the having, is not the accomplishment. What they're after is how they think they are going to be and feel after they get that. I'm going to get the promotion and then I'm going to feel seen. I'm going to feel happy. I'm going to feel recognized and accomplished. That's what they are after. It's not the promotion. I'm going to get the partner and then I'm going to feel loved. I'm going to feel worthy. I'm going to feel like I'm enough whenever I get there. And we live our lives just waiting for that next accomplishment, that next partner, that next boss that is going to finally see us, that is going to finally recognize us. So I don't start my vision with what I want to have. I start my vision with who I want to be. Now, who I want to be like happy, fulfilled, loved, I want to be able to see myself, are all these abstract and big picture states that I think is really important for us to define. Even though it sounds simplistic, it's powerful. And I call this my avatar and I do this with all my coaching clients. What is my ideal? And this is not who am I based on what I believe. This is who is my ideal self, not my current self. If I had all the resources, who cares? Who do I want to be? What is my ideal self? I want to be happy, fulfilled. I'm impacting millions of lives in stage or however. The how always remains flexible. So I define really clearly who do I want to be ideally. Giving yourself permission to dream is a huge enabler in this process. Who do I want to be? And then as human beings, we have four bodies, spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical. Who do I want to be spiritually? And I write it in present tense. So I am fully connected to the universal intelligence within me. So I recognize easily and effortlessly the right decisions to make. I don't know. That's just a quick example that I made up, but it's something similar to that. So in present tense and being energy, I am. Who do I want to be spiritually? Who do I want to be mentally? Mentally is how you think, how you communicate your beliefs. Who do I want to be emotionally? What are the positive emotions you want to feel? Happy fulfillment, joy, laughter. Physically, who do you want to be? Well, I am a manifestor of resources, whatever that is. Whenever they come and go, I experience pleasure. I stand tall. And when I walk into a room, I'm a bright light that impacts everyone's life. Again, I just made that up, but it's just an example, right? So in all these components, I define who do I want to be and what are the things that I want to be doing to be that person. My ideal self, my ideal avatar. Just like we do with business, we are going to do it with ourselves, your ideal avatar. And then based on that, I start asking myself, to get there to that ideal self, what are the things that I want to have, that I want to accomplish within the next year? So society has a backwards. We focus on having and then being. When I have this, I'll be happy. When I have that, I'll be loved. My framework is the total opposite. Who do you want to be? And are those things, are those opportunities that have been presented to you, aligned to who do you want to be? Because we are in this pattern of going after the shiny object every time it gets presented. I've been there and I still am. I want to be like, we are all in the same platform, working with ourselves. And even when I get a great opportunity, I ask myself, is this in alignment with who I want to be? If it's in alignment, it's an aligned action. If it's not, it doesn't matter how amazing it is. If it's Oprah or Sarah Blakely, I'm joking. In that sense, I would say yes. But it doesn't matter if it's someone important. If they're offering you something that is not aligned, that's a distraction for you. So an aligned action or a distraction, those are the two options. I think getting clear of that vision of who do you want to be has helped me immensely. And funny story, when I joined consulting, we always do these design thinking workshops for huge corporations such as Chevron, ExxonMobil, Apple, you name it. Accenture is such a big firm. And when I was participating in the design thinking workshops and facilitating them, sometimes eight hours workshops, I realized that they follow the same framework. They call it the North Star vision. Okay, hey, Chevron or Exxon, who do you want to be? Oh, we want to be the leaders in the oil and gas industry in the Permian Basin, for example. Right. And then what do you want to do in order to be the leaders? Oh, I need to double production by 2030. So if you see they're following the being, doing, and now, what are the initiatives that you need to accomplish in order to double production? So that's the having energy. What are the things you need to have in order to get you there? So even these multi-billionaires, millionaires corporations, they are following this framework of being, doing, and having successful leaders be do have, successful communicators they be do have. And so it's funny that we do this to facilitate this vision to these corporations, but we don't do it with ourselves, right? So that's how I come up with my vision and I help my clients come up with theirs, and it's powerful.

43:23 John  Wow. The it's interesting and I love how that gets created, right? So now you have this vision and you've worked it all the way down to, you know, what do I have? What do I need to do? And then it's like, it helps influence, like you mentioned when we were back on decision making and change being a decision. And so you notice when the opportunity comes up or you're making a decision and to even say this is an aligned choice, it has to be aligned with something. So it has to be aligned with a clear vision of who you want to become, why that's important to you and what you need to have in order to get there. So now you have that, it's decision time. And I think this is where mindfulness comes in a lot as well. And, you know, having that space between stimulus and response to even notice, okay, let me make this choice that's aligned with my vision. But in the moment, when we're living moment to moment, if we're wrapped up in go, go, go, or we're wrapped up in the rat race or what's happening within our lives, and we don't have the mental space, then forget about making a choice. I think forget about, you know, seeing if this is aligned, you need space for that. So what helps you create enough space in your mind to make those decisions moment to moment?

45:00 Yanet Oh, I love that so much. And silence for me is silence because I meditate every day, of course, right? Like I think we are all into the meditation. And I think a lot of people are afraid with uncertainty. And when you're in, you know, the only moment when we are in pure uncertainty, which by the way, that's the only moment you can create because uncertainty is creation. There is no way you can create out of the familiar. There is no way you can create out of the known. Creation is uncertainty, which is what we all need more of, tapping into that creation energy. The only moment of uncertainty we can tap into is a present moment. We are here in the present, embracing it. We don't have idea what's going to happen next. We don't have, we let go completely and surrender when we are in the present moment. The past is the known. The future is something that we are constructing from the present, which is an illusion because it hasn't happened yet. We don't know. So the present is the only beautiful moment where we get to simply be and tap into that uncertainty. So I think part of the process of making decisions is to tap into uncertainty, which allows you to get to know yourself because it's only in silence where you can tap into your own input. You go through life, even books. I mean, I love books, but books is another input. It's another source of information, just adding more to it. So I think only when you spend time with yourself in silence is when you start building that muscle of getting to know yourself, that intuitive muscle. And that's when mindfulness comes into place because the mind is not full. It's the opposite. It's just there. It's just being. That's the being energy that we also talk when we talk about the vision. That's being pure. I am. I am. Amen. Apparently, they all come from the same source. So it's just that for me, it's meditating in silence. I think that's what has been powerful to me. Sometimes it's harder than other days. So many people are like, oh my God, now meditating in silence. But you can start with one minute and then build a muscle, then two minutes. Do not seek perfection. It's never going to be perfect, but seek more consistency, progress. That's what we are here for. Yeah. 

47:44 Tony Real quick, I just had to comment because one thing you said that I love is about uncertainty. And I think that people get caught up in being afraid of uncertainty. And I think that meditation and many other practices, but especially meditation, it helps you be prepared for uncertainty. It's like we want this utopian lifestyle where there's no problems and there's no pain, but that does not exist. So the more that you practice working on yourself, developing, learning, and sitting still and sitting in silence, that is how, when the uncertainty shows up, that you can be a warrior in those moments and in those battles. So I just love how you explain your meditation practice and how you build that avatar self, just spot on.

48:37 Yanet I love that so much. I love that a lot too, because John and I have been through Vipassana, a 10-day silent meditation course. And they talk about the three causes of suffering, which of course, you're talking about the ups and downs that's totally normal. But one of the causes of suffering is aversion. And sometimes when we are faced in life with uncertainty, which it doesn't matter what you do, it's going to be there. So we got to work on acceptance, first of all, because uncertainty is there, whether you like it or not. But aversion, which is that like, oh, I don't like it. I don't want this. Please go away. The more aversion you feel, the more you obsess with it. And the more attention you bring to it, the more you call that into your life over and over, over and over. And because we are a memorized set of behaviors, beliefs, emotions, guess what? That's another pattern we run. I don't like uncertainty. Uncertainty shows up. I don't like it. I don't like it. And it comes even more and more because you're feeling, you're tapping into that energy field of aversion. And that creates suffering and unhappiness. And the other one is craving, which is like, oh, I like this. I want more of this. Okay. I got a promotion. I need another one. I need another one more, more, more. And it creates suffering because it creates dependency on all of those accomplishments and having energy. And when you don't get it, then you're unhappy. Right? So you forget about the being energy and you go back to that lower frequency of the having. I need to have more and more and more. So craving aversion. And then we go into life. I like this. I don't like this. I like this. I don't like this. Craving aversion, craving aversion, craving aversion. And the third one is ignorance, which is the lack of awareness that we are operating like this most of the time. Like we are craving aversion. I like this. I like you. I don't like you. I like you. I don't like you. And then that's another pattern. If you look at the big picture of life, that's one of the biggest patterns. Craving and aversion. And part of being into that present moment and mindfulness is breaking through that pattern. Because when you're in the present moment, you're just being. There is no craving aversion. You're just being. Now, let's be honest. When I was sitting in meditation 10 hours a day for 10 days, believe me, the back pain, I was feeling a lot of aversion towards that back pain. Okay. But part of the practice is to feel that and not react to it. To feel it and just observe what is full acceptance of back pain is there. Cool. And just observe it. As you observe it and do not react to it, the intensity will diminish naturally because things in life are always changing. So the intensity is never going to stay where it started. As long as you don't give energy to it, it's going to decrease. Right. So I just thought of that since I just went through that big pasana course. Man, what an experience that was. Yeah, it was challenging. I'm not going to… We are talking here. Yeah, meditation, which I love. I mean, that experience was challenging. And John told me, thankfully, because I pre-framed myself to this is going to be hard.

52:14 John Yeah, I said it's definitely not easy and it's worth it. It's totally worth it. It makes a big difference just being able to accept things the way that they are. I felt coming out of that experience that my one biggest insight was just being okay with reality as it is, not as I would like it to be.

52:41 Yanet Huge, huge. I accept. Me too. Honestly, it's funny how the mind… This is how my mind went. I'm going to go to Vipassana. I'm going to be totally healed. I may come out of it with a halo or enlightened or something. I mean, 100 hours in 10 days. You know, that's a big thing. And funny enough, you don't have control of your future or anything, right? But that's how the mind, that's how the ego operates. It's like, oh, yeah. So I go through Vipassana and then what Vipassana helped me realize was things that I still need to work on, things that I need to heal from. Because when you operate 10 days in pure silence, your things start coming up. And that's a huge win because many of those things were blind spots to me before. So for me, that was the biggest win of Vipassana is, oh, yeah, I still need to work on it. And I accepted and I work on it. So full acceptance. That was a big one for me too, John.

53:43 John The process, the continuous process of learning, reinventing, rewriting the vision and just coming back to the drawing board. And I think it's, you know, as above so below, right? There's just as our meditation practice is about, you know, coming back to the focus at hand, our lives are about experimenting, coming back to the drawing board and just learning as we move through life. And just to start kind of wrapping this concept up in a nice little bow here, you know, we had talked about reinventing ourselves, about the present moment, about visioning, about what it's like breaking the habit of being yourself. And what would be, you know, what would be one final message that you would give to the audience if to start on their journey today? Like what would be the simplest way for people to start stepping into their journey of self-discovery and creating their vision today?

54:55 Yanet  I love that. I think that the first thing is to recognize, which I didn't mention, it's never too late to reinvent yourself. Sometimes we are like, oh my God, I studied chemical engineering for five years and a half, five internships. I mean, all that wasted effort. It wasn't wasted. That allowed me to actually gain more clarity on who I wanted to be. So knowing that it's never too late and it doesn't matter what happened in your past, it is not wasted because how would you have gotten here without going through those experiences? So recognize and give credit to your past because it's powerful. And the other one would be, start being what you want to be without expecting that promotion to give you that feeling. So start being happy, start being fulfilled and not just being happy, but tapping into that emotion and that energy and start making decisions out of that ideal version of yourself. The ideal version of Janette, how would she respond to this situation? And when you start tapping into that energy of the being and who you want to be, you'll naturally start attracting the things that you want to have. But all of this with taking action because I don't believe in manifesting with no action unless someone is enlightened, which probably will happen, but we are not there yet. So I think also, what would you do differently now that you have all this information? Just take one action, just one different step than the one you would have taken before. How are you choosing differently? And just go for it, my friend, because you are capable. That's what you're here for in this lifetime, to really pursue your fulfillment and happiness, whatever that is for you. I think I gave like four different things, but I think everything is so related. That is hard.

56:57 John That's a great summary. What's one book or resource that you would recommend that made a big difference for you?

57:07 Yanet I think Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself is a powerful one. I just finished reading one, which is mega short. It's called The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra. And it talks a lot about the things we have been talking about. Of course, it's more spiritual, more energy-based. So if you're someone more mental, more like, I need to understand the data and the research, Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself is the one for you. If you're someone more spiritually, I still recommend Joe Dispenza, but you can also read The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra.

57:46 John Wow. And then how can our listeners connect with you or anything that you have coming up that you want to plug for them before we sign off?

57:57 Yanet I love that. So I was going to mention this decision-making framework. I have a free resource, and I'll send you a link, John and Tony. If you go to ybcoaching.com slash clarity, I build this resource with the decision-making framework to help people boost their clarity when it comes to decisions. You can also go to ybcoaching.com. I have all of my information there. And then follow me on Instagram, JanetteBCoaching or LinkedIn. And I have this masterclass coming up. I'm still finishing up all of the details, but it's called Energize Your Potential. And it's basically about three simple strategies for you to discover your purpose and start aligning your career to what truly lights you up or fires you up, just like all of us have done. I think that's one of the areas we are all passionate about. 

58:54 John Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing that with us. I will make sure that we have all those links in the show notes for listeners. And Tony, did you have anything else before we sign off?

59:10 Tony No, I'm going to go get that book by Deepak Chokha. And that's going to be my homework for the next 30 days.

59:21 Tony Wonderful. Well, Janette, thank you so much for coming on to the podcast. It's truly been a gift to share your presence, your energy, your light with our group. So thank you so much for coming on.

59:36 Yanet Thank you so much for inviting me. I mean, huge kudos to both of you because I think what you're doing in the community, what you're doing with your podcast, what you're doing in people's lives is super impactful and transformational. So I'm just very grateful that I get to connect with souls and people just like you. So thank you so much for bringing me in. I really appreciate it. 

59:58 John Beautiful. Beautiful. And listeners, thank you so much for being a part of the present professional community. You can connect with us at the presentprofessionalpodcast.com and across social media as well. So all of the links will be in the show notes from the discussion today and how to connect with all three of us and get to continue experiencing Janette's wonderful, wonderful energy. So take care of my friends until next time.