✨ Magical Mindset Podcast: Growth Mindset

Transform Your Life: Mindfulness and Growth Strategies for Success with Danica Favorite

[00:00:00] Introduction to Mindfulness and Growth Mindset

Macarena: Do you want to know how establishing a mindfulness practice can change your life? Are you curious how to set yourself up for success and how to increase your growth mindset? Join us on this episode.

Intro: Welcome to Magical Mindset with Macarena Luz Bianchi, where we explore the magic of mindset, gratitude, and purposeful living. I'm your host, Macarena, and I'm thrilled to have you join me on this journey of wonder, wellness, and wisdom. You can find the episode show notes, your free magical mindset blueprint, and more at xpres.me/podcast. And here's the show.

Macarena: In this episode, we explore growth mindset and how to set yourself up to succeed with my guest, Danica Favorite.

[00:00:50] Meet Danica Favorite: Author and Mindset Coach

Macarena: Danica Favorite is an author and mindset coach. She's a multi-published hybrid author. She understands the many challenges faced by authors today, and she seeks to help them navigate those challenges. Her mission is to empower people to tell their stories because every story matters.

Welcome Danica. I am so glad you're here. Thank you for joining me today

Danica: Hey, it's good to be here. I'm really happy that we got to have this time together. As you're one of my favorite people. It was fun talking about the idea of coming on and just sharing our ideas together. I think this is such a great podcast for people to be able to come and listening to how they can work on their mindset and make things just a little more magical.

Macarena: Wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. And we're twins in a lot of ways because you go by mindset coach and author. And I usually go by author and mindset coach. So we're twins, we're twinning here, which I love it.

Danica: Oh, we are twinning. I love it. It's so fun. But I think we're alike in a lot of ways and that's what makes us such great friends and such a good match to be able to do this together. I love that. We get to be on this adventure together.

Macarena: Amen.

So thank you. Thank you for being here.

[00:02:05] Defining Growth Mindset

Macarena: I know we have a lot of fun stuff to discuss together, but we set up the container of growth mindset. So starting with that, how would you define that? Or what does that mean to you?

Danica: To me, growth mindset is really looking at things as opportunities to grow. I think that there's always this opportunity to learn something new and find something new. And where can you expand into as opposed to, I think sometimes really bad things can happen and it's disappointing. But then if you can just switch that mindset just a little bit and realize that, "Wait, is there an opportunity here? What can I learn from it? How can I grow?" And really have that excitement about figuring out something new in your life and how that can make the world a little bit better.

Macarena: I love this. I love this. So one of the frameworks I have is called The Theme Park of Life, where we look at life in a more lighthearted way. Like how are we using our real estate, especially when we want to make changes and we're going through things. And then the other one is Directing Your Life, which is using Movie Making Mindset for personal development and re-taking control of our own stories.

So I know we're totally in the groove with those two things. And one of the things I've been talking a lot about lately, especially in my public speaking, is this idea that no one is spared the human experience. I think a lot of people suffer, including myself and my clients, I see, is because we don't allow ourselves to be human.

[00:03:34] The Importance of Inner Work

Macarena: And part of that includes, we all have to do the inner work, right? We all have to do the inner work. And no matter what. So that's what I mean by no one's spared the human experience. We all have to reflect, we all have to observe how we're reacting when we're on autopilot, what triggers us. All of that stuff is part of what I call the daily debrief. And of course, journaling is a big helper.

Even if you're doing therapy, which I'm a big fan of, it doesn't stop you. It's like going to the dentist. You go to the dentist for a deep cleaning. You still have to brush and floss every day. So I see inner work and all this mindset the same way.

Like we have to floss, so we have to do our journaling.

Danica: Yeah. And I think that it's really important to understand that we have to do that work ourselves. Going to a therapist is wonderful, and I think it's really important when you're struggling with a mental health issue or need that other perspective that you do have someone who's properly trained to be able to help you.

But ultimately, you've got to go away with that by doing the work. When I was in therapy, my therapist would send me home with, "Okay, read this book." And if I didn't read the book, then I wasn't doing the work necessary to move forward in that therapy. And so it's really important, not just reading the book, but then taking that book and saying, "Okay, what am I going to learn from this?"

And the books that come with reflection questions and journaling exercises, you got to do them because that's really where the value is taking that and seeing, okay, how do I apply this? And it's also valid to look at those books or look at that lesson and say, This isn't valid for me. I was just in a Facebook discussion with one of my good friends who was talking about this book and how she didn't relate to the book because of these different factors.

And another friend chimed in and said, Yes, I thought the same thing. But this next book by the author was actually fantastic. And really being able to pick apart Why you agree or disagree with the concept and not just saying, Oh, this is garbage, but okay. Why do you feel that way? And what can I still learn from this?

Because I think even those opposing viewpoints, we still learn something from that. And I think that is really part of that growth mindset is to say, okay, I disagree with this person. I disagree with this idea. Why? And how do I apply that learning to my life so that I can live my life better? Because I don't think it's enough to say, oh, that person's wrong.

Okay. No. Let's stop and really evaluate. Yeah.

Macarena: And I love the questions. It's all about asking questions, no matter at what level in this journey of life it is. And one of the questions I love because agree, disagree, I believe everybody has great reasons for thinking what they think and saying what they say and doing what they do.

So what I try to look for is. What is useful here? What is useful about this? It might not fit exactly into what I was expecting, but, where's the gift in this information? Because I really think if you pick up a book and read it, there is something valuable for you.

Danica: And maybe it is to say, I don't enjoy these types of books, that could be what you learned so you can correct and continue because we're constantly looking out of the world and saying, yes, no, yes, no, more of this, less of that, right? And even the books we agree with and the books we like. Why? What about this touches us and how do we relate to that? I was just at a discussion group last night where we were talking about, this approach. One of my friends recommended, "Hey, you all should read this book."

And another person in the group piped up and said, "Oh, actually, I don't like that book, but this book covers the same topic. And it's just a different way of approaching the material." And so it was a really interesting discussion where we really engaged on a topic of how people approach it. And a lot of these books, yeah, they are the same material, but they relate to people in different ways.

And you have to say, "Okay, cool. What can I get out of this? And why is that important?" Because it's that learning process and choosing to learn from it. Sometimes it's just, "I'm too tired." Like you recommended a really great book to me when we chatted last and I downloaded it. I was like, "Oh, I can't get into it." And then the next book I picked up, like everything that night, I just couldn't get into it. I'm like, "Okay, it's not the book, it's me."

Macarena: The timing, sometimes it's timing. But yeah, I think so many people recommend things to us that if we go through the motions, it's our soul leading us in the right path.

[00:08:03] Embracing New Experiences

Danica: One of the things I did for this year, one of my themes, I love this because this really fits into your theme park idea, is that this is my year of Yes. if I have the opportunity to do something new, try something new, experience something different, my answer is going to be yes.

Now obviously let's not get crazy. I'm not going to do something that's going to be dangerous or whatever. But If it's to something that is unfamiliar and new to me, as long as we're talking safe things, I'm going to say yes. I'm going to try it because I don't know. And I took this from a friend of mine who is an author.

Someone in this thing we were at asked her, "What is your secret to success?" And she said, you know, "I just walk through every open door and see where it leads me. And that's been the key to my successful career." And so I took that idea and I said, "Okay, I'm going to do that and apply it to my life."

And just like I said, it's just an experiment for this year and I'm saying yes. It's been really cool because I've had experiences that I would have never otherwise had. In January, I went to the concert by myself. I've never done that before. And I went to a concert by myself.

I was so nervous because it was standing room only. It was a small venue, didn't know anyone. I made a really cool group of friends there all because I just said yes.

And so now I have a really cool group of new friends. I wouldn't have otherwise met really neat people.

And it's because I said yes. And I think about that, all of the things that I have done this year that I said yes to, I haven't regretted a single yes. And I think so many times the regrets we have in life are our no's. We regret not writing the book. We regret not going on the trip. We regret not doing all these things that we always wanted to do.

And maybe it is because I'm reaching that phase of life where I'm like, "Okay, I'm halfway through my life. What else do I still want to do?" And "Okay, cool. Yes, I'm going to do it. Yes, I'm going to do that." So far, my regrets are, I wish I had done this sooner. I love that idea. Because it's that theme park, right?

You go and you experience these new rides and these new foods. I don't know about you, but when I go to theme parks, one of my favorite things is to try new foods. I went a few years ago to SeaWorld with my daughter and her friend, and it was their international food and wine festival. I am not a roller coaster person.

I have motion sickness. That's usually not a great combination. Sometimes I will go on the roller coaster, but it was really great for my daughter had a friend to go with. So she and her friend went on the roller coaster and I just walked around SeaWorld as they'd stand in line and all of that.

I would eat all this amazing food. I tried cricket tacos and I'm going to tell you guys, they were delicious. Because I was like, what's it gonna hurt me? If I take a bite and it's disgusting, I spit it out, I'm done. But it was delicious and I went back for more.

Macarena: Wow. Whoa, whoa, Whoa. I love this.

One of the things you touched on is this idea that we're constantly expanding as humans. Sometimes people think we're here to learn lessons.

And I shy away from that because that implies there's something wrong with us. And I don't think that's, in my experience, what life is all about. The sooner you can realize, "Hey, I'm here to express myself. How do I want to do this?" The more things that open up to people. So that's one of the mindset things I talk about all the time.

Danica: I like that idea a lot because I think even though I talk about, "Oh, we're expanding, we're learning, we're growing." And even with the idea of the growth mindset, you have to start from a place of I am perfect exactly as I am, and you have to start from that place of loving and accepting yourself exactly where you're at, because otherwise that idea of growing and expanding, it's never going to be enough. And the whole point of growing and expanding is to be more of what you already are, to enjoy more of what you already have. And until you can be in that place of loving and accepting where you are and who you are, you aren't going to get those valuable things from the growth and expansion because it's not gonna feel like it's enough.

Macarena: Yes. So starting from a satisfied place, because I think that's the inner work that we talk about so much. Satisfaction is a choice because things are going to come at you externally that you may like, that you might not like. However, being satisfied with who we are as a person and knowing that we can, upgrade anytime we want, of course. But we're starting from that foundation of acceptance and unconditional love and satisfaction. I think that allows us to springboard and create way more freely than otherwise, if we're self conscious.

All the limitations,

Danica: Yeah. And I think it helps you enjoy that adventure more and it helps you enjoy that theme park as you will. To be able to say, "Okay, I'm gonna be happy with myself no matter what happens." Like having the courage to go to that concert by myself and be okay with that. I'm going to have fun and enjoy the music whether or not I am having whatever experience I'm having.

And I think people are drawn to that feeling of satisfaction and that enjoyment. Because if I was sitting in there going, "I'm not having fun cause I'm all by myself", no one's going to be attracted to that and say, "Oh, I want to meet her." But I'm just there having a good time, not caring what everyone thought, and suddenly this group of people was like, "Hey, you look like you're by yourself, but you're having fun. You look like you're a fun person. Would you join us?" It's like, "Yes."

Macarena: It's so funny. It's so interesting. I've had to do stuff by myself and I actually quite love it. It's funny. It reminds me of a few things. When I used to go to business trips with my husband, some people would be like, "Oh, poor you, you're by yourself." I'm like, " I love being myself. I can actually be creative and do stuff."

I've had lots of experience traveling by myself. I went to Thailand. When I was in grad school, I didn't have much money, but I had a ticket to go anywhere in the world. And I was like, "I want to go to India." My dad was like, "You need to actually plan that a little better." But he'd just been in Thailand and he thought it's a wonderful safe place.

So I did. I went by myself to Thailand and it was amazing. And then I learned that when you're by yourself, it's so easy to meet people. If my husband and I are together, we're talking to each other. We don't have a need to be friends. Like our dogs provided this kind of community opportunity for us. Because of the dogs strangers talk to us all the time and we talk to strangers all the time. But if it wasn't for that, they would be absolutely zero need to talk to anybody else. I think sometimes that's a disservice. So even if you are just with one other person, it is good to be open and available to what's possible.

So that's another question I love to ask. What is possible here?

Danica: I like that a lot too. And it's so funny because now I'm like, "I want to go to Thailand." It's actually on my list of places I want to go. But you mentioned that travel by yourself. I'm getting ready to go to Europe for almost a month, by myself, going for work. This will be my fourth trip to Budapest for work.

And my coworkers are always surprised at how well I know Budapest. But when I first went there, I didn't know anybody. I hadn't even met my coworkers yet. I just explored and had adventures. Last time I was there, people were like, "Oh yeah, we want to go to this thing." And my coworkers from outside of Budapest were like, "Oh yeah, I don't know how to get there."

I'm like, "oh, I do. Come on. The Metro is this way." And they were like, "Wow, you're the American here." I'm like, "Yeah, let's have an adventure." And it was just because I wasn't afraid to go and explore. And so now here I am going back for the fourth time. It's like a second home. After that, I'm going to go to Vienna.

I'm actually meeting up with a writer there, so that will be fun. But then I'm going to Croatia, for five days by myself.

I don't know what I'm going to do. I have some ideas, but I'm just excited for the adventure. And everyone's "Aren't you afraid to go by yourself?" I'm like, "Why?"

Croatia is a very safe place. I checked out the public transportation, so I know that I'll have access to get where I need to go. And I'm like, "Yes, let's embrace that." And then after that, I'm going to the UK. I've got a conference there that I'm going to, and then I'll be back with writing people and people I know.

But I think that travel by myself is so empowering to just be open to what else is out there and what I can do. And I'm excited about it because I don't know. And again, it is the possibility and being open to saying, "I have no plans" other than like the set dates that I have to be certain places for conferences or work or whatever, but to just be open and say, "Yes, I get to do this."

That's exciting. I think there's a lot of freedom in that.

Macarena: I usually tend to be so over scheduled, which I used to love it. I used to love planning and scheduling, in my personal life, in trips, when I worked as a filmmaker, all that stuff I loved, like scheduling gives me a false sense of security and control. But I realized what I really love is being able to free flow.

And I've had wonderful opportunities. I've done a bunch of traveling by myself, but sometimes you're traveling with someone, but then you've got different things going on. Like my husband had to go to a conference, I would have writing days, which were great. And then I had the most magical time.

So many places I've had the most magical time. We saw each other in New Orleans, and I had one of those beautiful magic days where I just wondered around and it was perfection beyond perfection. I walked into the perfect coffee shops, into the perfect stores. I'm not a shopper, but I do love when things are unique and different and New Orleans provided that. It was really the most magical, I don't know, maybe four hours of just wandering around.

It was magnificent. I got to do that in Amsterdam. And it was magical beyond magical. Wandered around museums, had afternoon tea. It was like perfection.

c Oh yeah, that sounds magical. I really love that because I think that is where the magic happens. I don't think magic is something that happens on a schedule. And again, you and I are so similar because I used to be that person also where I'd have a spreadsheet of "Okay, this is what we're going to hear."

And then, and this, and I had great trips and I have great memories of those trips. I can remember one trip when I went to England and I was so disappointed because it was my first time there. I had this whole dream of what was going to happen. And guess what? It didn't happen according to my spreadsheet.

And I was so disappointed. And then I contrast that with my last trip where I met a friend there, it was somebody that I knew from online and we met up. And he introduced me to his family and his family took me on a tour of London from the perspective of people who had spent their entire lives living in London.

And so his little boy, I'm going to tell you, his little boy is one of my favorite people because he was so cute. I say little boy, he's 14, but he was just like, "Okay, and you see that statue over there? Oh yeah, that statue. We learned about that in history class and this" blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he told me the whole story of it.

And number one, it's something that you're not going to get on a normal tourist tour, but also as an American, I didn't know that history and it was so lovely. I thought, man, there are things in London I have still not seen that I would love to see someday, but I got to see so many more magical things that I don't regret not seeing them.

I'm just happy that I got to have this other super cool experience that I would not trade for a million dollars.

Macarena: And you touched upon it, it was the stories, cause every place has a story. We need the context to understand. When we travel, we all love history and

my Husband and my stepson, for example, the last time we were together, I have two step boys, but one of them is in college, so he rarely travels with us.

I think we're all going to travel this summer, which is going to be really exciting, but we all like are approaching it differently. This is usually our experience where the tour guide, the historian is like, "This was awesome." They're like, "Thank you. You guys were so interested." And we each asked different questions about the situation that said, "All tours are good, but this was exceptional."

And it was like, it was the same for us. And that's what we bring to it. That curiosity and willingness to learn and from understanding our bias, we're coming to this from this. So it's really fascinating to hear your side of it. I love that about history and traveling and talking to people, locals and the food and all those wonderful things that are absolutely wonderful and memorable because of the stories and the stories we create together.

[00:20:00] The Power of Storytelling

Macarena: So I know story is really important for you and as an author and not just that, but as a coach. So when did you realize that stories were your jam?

Danica: I think it's actually been my whole life. I was the kid who learned to read very early. I was reading books at a very young age. So I've always been fascinated by story and always wanted to know more. I would read a book and want to dig even deeper and learn more about the characters.

I would want to learn more about the history. I became a total fangirl over going to England and wanting to experience that. And I'm also excited because this trip, this time I'm going to see Brighton for the first time. And I read Regency Romance, a little fiend, that was my jam for years.

I still love Regency Romance. And to be able to get to go and see the places that people wrote about. Then also to hear their stories and experience the place from their perspective. That's why I say in my bio that every story matters. I believe that all the stories that are out there are so valuable and not only do they teach us and they help us see things from a better perspective, but I think it's important for someone to know that their story does matter because it's so easy to fall into that trap of thinking you don't matter.

And so to have that experience where you've touched someone's life, even in just a small way, like you were talking about the tour guide. I've had that memorable tour guide as well, where the tour guide did something really special. I was in Wales one time and the tour guide, his name was Tony.

Tony and I had a fantastic conversation and I got to hear his life story. And at the very end of the tour, he was like, "I want you to come back." I said, "Oh, I want to come back." I still haven't made it back to Wales. But he even gave me a Welsh English dictionary, out of his backpack. He opened his backpack and he pulled out this dictionary and said, "I want you to have this." And that's one of my most treasured possessions. Because it was this man that I had encountered and his story and how touching that was to me. And I think that is how we make the world better and how we help each other. That to me is so powerful. And that's what makes visiting these places so impactful.

And I'm going to say, I want to visit somewhere with you. I know we had a great experience in New Orleans, but I'm like, "Okay, now that I know she and I have that same travel vibe, we need a trip together."

Macarena: Yeah, because it would be super, super magical. And one of the things here that I'm hearing is to be able to be open to stories and to be accessible and have it within us to even talk about it, we need to be present. Because if we're not present, we're not going to share. We're not going to hear "Oh, I can share this part of myself."

And we're not going really listen to the person. So I think a fundamental thing for storytelling is being present. Another is curiosity, which we've talked a lot, which I think curiosity and playfulness, go hand in hand. I want to talk more about being present because it's a mindset choice that I think requires constant vigilance because it's so easy to be stuck in fear, which usually is we're afraid of reliving the past or anxiety.

We're worried about what's going to happen, what could happen. And yes, some people go through the process of, they must look at every horrific outcome before they can swing over to the gratitude side of things. And yes, I do talk a lot about gratitude, but the reason I talk about gratitude so much is because as a recovery workaholic, I've crashed and burned, I've been overwhelmed.

I've been fearful. I've been all of those things and it's not fun. I think it's part of the human experience. Contrast. Restriction. I love that saying "Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional." So I think pain is a part of growth and challenge and contrast and all those wonderful things, and we must feel them, they need to be processed.

And then once they're processed, then we can make a choice. But none of that happens if we're not present.

Danica: Yeah, and I think that's really interesting that you brought that up because I've been writing a book on author mindset and I've actually been working on it for like three or four years. It's ridiculous how long it has drawn-out. Although, I understand why and again even though I say, "Ooh, that's ridiculous. Okay. But why is that? Okay, cool." I can process that and understand that. But where I was stuck and even in the beginning when we were talking about the idea of we're both this mindset coach is I was really torn between going with mindfulness or mindset. And I just decided that mindfulness is part of mindset because what absolutely changed my life was establishing a mindfulness practice and having those moments where I am intentionally taking a moment to be present in that present moment and paying attention to what's going on and just observing without judging and just saying, "Oh, Wow.

Listen to that truck in the background. Ooh, look at the birds flying in that tree." And really having that moment of just experiencing because we do get caught up in all the other stuff. And when you take that moment to experience and appreciate, even if it's not a pleasant experience, like, "Okay, something smells, that's not a very pleasant smell. Okay. Let's be curious about that. Let's explore that." And rather than being like, "Oh my God, it stinks in here." And having that be the way we frame it to be able to say, "Okay, I'm smelling something unpleasant. Isn't that interesting?" And taking that mindfulness approach and being able to sit in a situation and say, "Okay, this is a painful experience," but the suffering, as you said, it's optional.

And yes, we do have those moments of suffering and we need to acknowledge them. But then to take that mindful presence of saying, "Okay, I am experiencing suffering right now. And that's okay because this is part of the human experience." And suddenly that then begins to dissipate and it just becomes this place of acceptance and understanding so that you can appreciate all of the other things around you.

I just wrote a journal entry yesterday. Yesterday, I was coming off of a three day migraine and I wrote, "I'm so grateful for this migraine." Because what it made me aware of is that I used to have chronic migraines that would knock me out for days on end, which this was a three day migraine.

But what I realized is that pain reminded me that because of all the work I've been doing, all of the health stuff I've been improving, this is the first three day migraine I've had in probably six months. Wow, that's amazing. I used to have them a couple times a month and now once in six months, I'm going to celebrate that and be grateful.

And I think that's what mindfulness and being present does for you, because it immediately changes that mindset from, "Oh my gosh, I have a terrible headache and I'm suffering" to, "Wow, I am suffering. Look at how grateful I am that this was the first time in six months I've suffered and all the wonderful things I've gotten to experience because of that."

Macarena: Wow. Wow. I'm glad you're feeling better. And nothing like perspective, #perspective. I have names for some of the things you've mentioned. One of 'em I call invoking the senses and to play with this. You don't just do this when things are good, you invoke the senses all the time.

I use invoking the senses to offset autopilot, because sometimes we can get it to autopilot, especially we're doing routine things like, even walking our dogs. I'm like, "Let me invoke the senses. What am I seeing? What am I feeling? Let me feel the breeze. Let me connect and let me slow down." That's another thing that I have to do to invoke the senses is slow down because I can be so like, "I've got to do a million things." Then it's "Okay, no. Let's be here." And then whenever I think of that, I also visualize myself being up connected to the earth.

And that helps me.

Danica: Yeah. And just connecting with the world around us, because we are part of the world. We are part of the earth. One of the meditation techniques that I use, even to be able to send loving kindness to that grocery checker that you just encountered and being able to be present with that person like is that person's life going to change because you were present with them and they probably didn't even realize it, but for that moment, you gave them something beautiful.

And that makes a difference. And it's those little things that add up because the reality is most of us don't get into trouble because we made one huge bad decision, it was a series of bad decisions and they just built on each other. And so why not reverse that? And instead of looking at, "I've got to make this one really good decision."

Okay. How about we just start with a small, good decision. And then we can make that next small, good decision and the next and the next. And then if we make a mistake, okay, cool. It was a mistake. Sweet. What's that next small thing we can do. And I think it brings it back into perspective of realizing how these little things really do add up and make a huge difference.

Eventually, because it's never that one big thing, it's always little small things. You talk about the straw that broke the camel's back and it is never, wow, someone just dumped a big load on the camel. No, it was the camel load, and boom, it's a little straw and boom, the camel has collapsed.

And I think that's what happens to us too.

Macarena: Presence is the biggest gift we can give not only ourselves, but other people. Absolutely. I think the smile is extra. The smiles, the cherry on top, and it has to feel genuine, otherwise then it's oof, it's definitely not.

[00:29:26] Mindfulness Practice and Daily Rituals

Macarena: So you mentioned your mindfulness practice. What is your mindfulness practice look like?

Danica: Yeah. So for me, what I do is when I wake up in the morning, I do a meditation. It's called Metta, which is a loving kindness practice. And it basically just starts with a series of phrases that you say. There is the formal way of doing it, but then the person that I have worked with and my teacher, she actually has a variety of different phrases she uses.

So it really is about adjusting to feel right. And so the basic is may I feel safe? May I feel happy? I forgot the third one that I usually do. And then the fourth one is May I live with ease? And so I do that and I do that for myself until I'm feeling really grounded in myself of this loving kindness wish for myself. And then I do it for somebody who's just a random stranger, whether that's the mailman or the checker at the grocery store that I saw yesterday or whatever, but I do it to a very random person.

And then I do it for a person that I love. And then finally, the fourth one is a difficult person. And when you start this practice, obviously you don't want to do your world's worst enemy, but maybe it's the guy who cut you off in traffic yesterday and you just send them that loving kindness. Then I do a series of just breathwork exercises, just some breathing exercises to get me focused in my breath and my body.

And that's what I do before I get out of bed.

Macarena: Nice.

Danica: And then I go about my day. And again, whenever I'm in that moment of things aren't going well or stuck in traffic, I do this a lot in traffic, actually. I do the meditation in traffic a lot because I have a tendency to get a little road ragey and I do use a lot of bad language.

I used to joke that my kids learned all their bad words by being with me in the car during rush hour. So for me, it helps calm my nervous system to just be able to, "Okay, I'm going to take a few breaths." And just send loving kindness to that person who just cut you off. Because were they sitting there thinking, "Oh, Danica is a horrible person.

I'm going to cut them off and ruin their day." No, they're not thinking that. They're thinking their day is not going well. They're in a hurry to get somewhere and so they need this to be able to do whatever they're doing. I'm not perfect at it because I still, like I said, I will yell the jerks in traffic, but it makes it easier.

So I go throughout my day. And then at the end of the day, again, before I go to bed, I'm going to do some journaling. I do gratitude. I have a gratitude journal that I use every night. Another thing we have in common is the gratitude. Gratitude journal maybe a little journaling.

And then again, just going back to that Metta. And I usually do fall asleep doing some level of that either gratitude practice or loving kindness practice and just sending that loving kindness to myself. I do think it's very important to have that loving kindness to yourself, because I think we are the meanest to ourselves.

So just giving yourself that love and grace that maybe you haven't gotten throughout the day, at the end of the day, you just give yourself that love.

Macarena: Wow. I love that because it sounds like a very worthwhile, unconditionally self-loving ritual that I'm sure the beginning is weird, but the more you practice, the more natural it becomes. And I think that's where the power is because you do it so much that you can access it on command when you need it.

Right?

Danica: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And again, the thing is if you're having a difficult moment, you can immediately drop into that space and be like, "Okay, let me center myself with my breath." I think breath work is so important and that practice of deep breathing and really giving yourself good breath. That moves a lot of energy.

You give yourself those deep breaths and then you're like, "Okay, cool. Let me give myself some love." And maybe you've had a really difficult moment. Again, I use the traffic example a lot because I have a lot of traffic. I know you probably do too, where you're at in Miami, but like to just be able to say, "Okay,

this is something that I can do for myself, to care for myself. It reminds me of the idea, I don't know if you're familiar with the book The Four Agreements,

Macarena: I love The Four Agreements.

Danica: But that is a book I really love. And one of the things to always remember is it's not personal. And so that guy that cut you off in traffic, it isn't personal. So just be like, "Okay, this isn't personal. I'm going to send him love for whatever he's at." Because the truth is he's probably acting like a jerk in traffic. Because again, as I was just saying, he's got other stuff going on. He's in a hurry to get somewhere. Just send that love.

Macarena: If he's doing the best he can with what he has, and then when we remember that, that's the fourth agreement, always do your best. And to remember that everybody's doing their best, if we apply that. I love the four agreements. I think it was a game changer book for me. I think it helps rewire our mindsets and deal with this whole matrix idea of the world. And also how to rewire the things that were put upon us, all the agreements that were forced upon us through culture, family, society, whatever. This allows us to decide which agreements do we actually want to keep. I love them. It's be impeccable with your word. And in my coaching, I'm a bit of I can have people talk poorly about themselves. That's one of my super powers, my spidey sense.

I'm like, negative self talk. Please don't do that. And then people, sometimes they don't even realize it because there's some simple level stuff. But then there's some things that point to several layers underneath of that's what's going on. So anyway, I'm really good at being like "Please reword that, or journal about why you feel it's necessary to speak down about yourself," right?

And then it's don't assume. Don't make assumptions. Right? And this is a big one. This goes back to, again, one of the reasons why I always think of people have really good reasons for doing what they do. They're usually have nothing to do with us. So giving people that grace, giving ourselves the grace with being impeccable with the word, giving other people enough grace by not making assumptions.

Wow. I have a saying it's called "Everyone has center of the universe disease." It's part of human nature, we have to advocate for ourselves. it's part of survival. Yet some people take it too far.

And again I hadn't realized, but one of my agreements is I trust people have good reasons for doing the things they do. So I don't take it personally. I trust they're doing their best and I don't assume anything about it. So I hadn't realized how this book and The Mastery of Love, I think that's an amazing one for self-love, it really formulated part of my mindsets, my foundational fundamental mindset where I allow people to be human and thereby allow myself to be human.

Danica: And I think we have to. We have to allow ourselves to be human. In fact, it's so funny. I just re-shared a meme on my Facebook page today. And this is a paraphrase of it, but it's the idea of give yourself grace, more today than you did 10 years ago when you did that really dumb thing that you're still beating yourself up for, but you did the best you could with the knowledge that you had 10 years ago.

Give yourself grace and say, "Wow, I was doing my best then, now I know better and I get to do better. And so yay for me for now. And I'm going to give love to that self 10 years ago, who unfortunately didn't do the right thing and that's okay because we learned from it."

Macarena: Correct and continue is all we can do.

Danica: Yes, exactly.

Macarena: Interesting. And you reminded me of this idea of what's liberating or what is keeping us caged in. I like thinking about that. And it reminds me, there's a song by Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here, there's a great line that I love. I find it so poetic. "Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?" So poetic. Oh my God. And then there's another part of that song that says "Oh, do you think you can tell heaven from hell, blue skies from pain?

[00:37:02] Mindfulness and Meditation Insights

Macarena: Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Do you think you could tell?" Oh my god.

So thank you for Pink Floyd for being so poetic and allowing me every time I hear that song to be like, "How do I know? How do we know if we're being present?" And I think that's what the mindfulness exercises provide for us. So I love that you have an ongoing practice that allows you to self-regulate.

I think that is so important.

Danica: Yeah. I think that it's a really important thing for us to just take that time to go inside. The reason I like the Metta meditation personally is because I've spent years, Oh, meditate, meditate. And I am a terrible meditator when you just say, "Oh yeah, go meditate."

But if I have that framework and that structure to be able to say have that thing of those emotions to share and to really focus on and send that out, I think that's really, for me, a way to be focused and not feel like I'm scattered everywhere. If I'm not doing that, then to even be able to do what you were talking about of looking at all the senses and just having a moment where you just stop and say, "Okay, what is each of my senses experiencing?"

Because just that pause gives your whole nervous system a chance to just relax instead of always being on on, on, on. It's just such a good thing to do for your body and for your mind and for your spirit. Because even things like your body and your health and your blood pressure even like that just calms it down.

[00:38:37] The Importance of Movement

Macarena: Yet the breathwork is magical that way. And I also try to ask myself, once I go through the senses is "What's on my mind? What am I thinking? What am I feeling?" And then I also like to ask myself more of a supernatural one, a metaphysical one. "What am I sensing? What else am I sensing?" Cause I think we've talked about this before with the wonder wellness wisdom.

That's the lighthearted living formula. Those are the next phase of mind, body, and spirit, the full expression of those. The senses are a good way to be present, but then we want to address all parts of ourselves.

Danica: Yeah, absolutely. And the thing I like to add to that as well, is to ask myself, "Is there something I need right now?" Because one of the things that I learned long ago, when you're dealing with an emotional situation especially, I remember when my children were small, is this idea of halt.

Are you hungry, angry, lonely, or tired? So when my kids would be having a meltdown, I'm going to get a little tired and go through that. And what I realized is we still need that. When we have those moments of pause to say, okay, "Is there anything in this moment that I need? Do I need some water?

Do I need to eat something? Do I need a human connection? Do I have an emotion I need to work with? Do I need to take some more breaths? And do I need to move my body?" Cause I don't know about you, but I spend most of my day at the computer. And wow, I'm feeling this. Okay. Wow. "Have I gone out and moved my body today?"

[00:40:02] Daily Routines and Self-Care

Danica: That's a new rule I have for myself is I have to leave my house every day. Which, for me, working from home, I don't have to leave my house every day. But if I make myself go out, and that's going to walking to the mailbox counts, by the way, but I'm physically leaving my home, I'm going out into the world, I'm experiencing the world, and then of course that component of "Did I move my body today?"

And I'm not a big exercise person. I hate exercise. I hate running. But I also recognize that my body was created to move. And so what is a movement I can do to feel good? I love yoga. For me, that's maybe going to yoga or today, I'm not going to be able to go to my yoga class. Instead, I have my yoga mat in my bedroom and I'm going to make sure that I do just a few poses.

For me, it's not an official, "This is the pose." But I have a really fantastic yoga teacher who's "Okay, so let's figure out in that pose, how we're going to move our body and make our body feel good." It doesn't have to be a lot. Even just five minutes a day is going to benefit you.

But again, that check in to say, "Okay, have I done these things that are good for me, for my body, my mind, my spirit?" And even like you said, that connection with the spirit. Whatever your spiritual practice is and whatever spiritual thing you believe in to just say, boom, "I'm going to have a moment to check in with that spiritually and realize that I am connected to something greater than myself."

Macarena: I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. I'm a big fan of yoga and every day I do at least one sun salutation, at least in the morning and I foam roll.

Because I realized without it, like during the break, I was like, " Oh, I'm on vacation". And I didn't do it. And I pulled a rib, I pulled a rib out.

And it is so painful and it's so weird because you feel like you can't breathe. And I was like, ah, so all this reminds me, I read a fantastic book. It's called Built to Move. So there's a difference between mobility and exercise, which I recently learned. And it's fantastic because it talks about how we're built to move. And some of us forget that because of our lives are so sedentary.

So it has been wonderful. And it's been a game changer as being aware of "Oh, I do want to squat for no reason." Or before when I used to be like, "Oh, I have to bend down and get a dog toy." Now I'm like, "Yes, it's a squat. I get to squat today

Danica: Yeah. I love that you start your day with a sun salutation cause I used to do that as well. And I took that out and I'm like, "Ooh, I'm going to add that back in." Cause I actually start my day with cat cow and I'm like, "Ooh, cat, cow, and sun salutation.

That would be fantastic." I love that you said it's just one, because I think that when people hear, "Oh, I have a yoga practice" or "You need a yoga practice", they think cause like I said, usually Tuesdays, I have an hour long yoga class I like to go to, and I miss it about half the time, but I think we think yoga practice, "Oh, I don't have an hour a day to spend on yoga."

One sun salutation, that's less than a couple minutes, like it's just past. And to just honor your body with a quick little thing is so much better than nothing. Well, I don't have time to do the big full routine. I love, on YouTube, Yoga with Adriene.

She's fantastic. And sometimes I don't have time. She's got really even like 10, 15 minute videos sometimes. I don't even feel like I have that, but to say I can do one pose and that just changes everything. So when I said, "Oh yeah, I can add one sun salutation." I'm like, boom, game changer, because I miss having that in my practice.

And that takes so little time.

Macarena: That's what I learned from Atomic Habits that it doesn't have to be all or nothing. A little is better than none. You do what you can, as long as you're not beating yourself up about it. I think that's the key. And then it builds on each other because once you take out the mat, it's rare that I do only one. I usually do three or whatever or more.

It depends. But I look at time like an accordion. Would I like to get up earlier to do all the things I want to do before my day starts? You bet. However, I have to prioritize sleep. So I figured out, I don't have to be all or nothing, which I had those tendencies. Oh boy, did I have those tendencies. And it just feels so much better.

And then we work out together as a family. We all go strength train at the gym. But sometimes it doesn't happen. Or, we try to go four times a week and that's fluid with everybody's schedules. But no matter what, I give myself that morning sun salutation and then at least I foam roll before bed because otherwise I would have to go to the chiropractor every week.

And yeah. Because we write, I do my best not to leave my home. You've got things about wanting to leave the home. I'm like, "Do not leave the home between 9 a. m. and 12, Monday through Thursday." That's like my focused writing group, author group. And we show up and we do whatever work needs to get done. But so I can walk before, I can walk after, but not during. And that has made a big change.

[00:44:43] Batching Tasks for Efficiency

Macarena: One of the things I learned during the pandemic was how much time was wasted running around? Like, whoa, whoa, Whoa. So I streamlined all of that. Thank goodness.

Danica: Yeah. I did the same thing. I did this prior to the pandemic because I had kids who were involved in millions of activities and I was constantly racing. What I learned to do is batch my errands and my activities. I do go to the chiropractor once a week which is Monday. So every Monday I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to already be out for the chiropractor. What errands are on my way to and from the chiropractor?" Then I batch that. The rest of the week, I don't have to sit there. Usually Monday afternoon, on my way home from the chiropractor, I go to the grocery store for the week.

And that way I have that freedom the rest of the week. I'm not saying they're going, "Oh, I have no groceries. I bought them all on Monday." It just makes my life easier because again, I then have that room to expand and do the things I really love rather than every day. "Oh, I'm out of this. Oh, I'm out of that.

Oh, I've got to go to the store again." No. I have those pieces of time that are reserved for those things. Going back to the idea of being able to say, "Okay, I don't have time for the full workout today, I did one little thing." But then celebrate. It's so important to me to celebrate those micro victories because again, we get so caught up in "I didn't get to work out today. Okay, but I did do this. So I'm going to celebrate that I did this." And figuring out those small wins because it's so easy to get caught up in the loss of "I didn't get that done today" or "I didn't do this". But then to say, oh, yeah, but look at what I did do and celebrate those things.

Macarena: I love it. I call all of this whole mindset, set for success. Set yourself up to succeed whenever possible and every which way. Because so many times, by not observing what we're doing, again, consequence of the autopilot. When we're in autopilot, it's not the best use of our time, we're running around like crazy. But when we can sit back and be like, "Okay, how can I optimize when I'm out of the house, when I'm in the house, my focus time, my time with friends." These things really make a big difference.

Danica: Right. By doing that, it allows you to be present because I know that I have this time set aside to work when my friend calls me up and says, "Hey, let's go to lunch." I'm like, "Okay, cool." I can be present with my friend and have that lunch with my friend because I know these other things on my list are taken care of.

That builds my friendship because I'm fully present with my friend. But it also just builds me because I'm not multitasking, trying to get a million things done. And that's so valuable because there's so many studies coming out now that says multitasking is actually super harmful for you.

So when you're able to realize that, "Okay, that's not giving me what I need. Cool." I can now say "I'm putting these tasks together. I'm doing this task now and then it's done." I used to do, I don't do it anymore and this was mostly for writing, it was called the Pomodoro technique where you write for 25 minutes, you take a five minute break.

You write for 20 minutes, you take a five minute break, and then after so many pomodoros, you take a 30 minute break. I used to really love that. I'm out of that rhythm right now, but it is still that same kind of concept of saying, "Okay, I am doing this task for X amount of time and then I'm done. This is the time I'm devoting to it."

If it doesn't get done, that's okay. Because I did something and rather than stressing, "Oh, this is too big to start."" Okay, cool. I know I have 30 minutes. I'm going to work on this for 30 minutes and then I'm done." And it may not be finished, but it's certainly further along than it was when I was sitting here stressing about, "Oh my gosh, I don't have time to do this."

Macarena: I love it. Yeah, I use that. I do it also for, it's not always writing sprints, but it's, I call it focus sprints. I discovered that in author getaway. It was amazing because I was like, "I don't know if I can do that". Because whenever I used to do that before, I just be like, the 20 minutes would go off or the 25 minutes I'd be like, end, end.

So it took me being in community and doing that with a group to realize how effective it is. Because when we're together, we're chit chatting and then it's "No, we can focus." And I got more done in like a few sprints than in a month once.

And it was just so illuminating and eye opening of what's possible when we allow and give the time.

[00:49:00] Growth Mindset Tips

Macarena: And I think part of this whole idea of the growth mindset is how do I set myself up to win? How do I not judge myself into a corner or into a limitation? How can I accept who I am and allow myself to thrive and flourish no matter what is going on, in any and all circumstances?

Danica: Yeah. And I love that too, because I think that we can't control the stuff that happens in our lives. There's just so much that happens that we have no control of and we make ourselves crazy when we try to control it. And for me, what's really important and I do want to say this is that we have our own processes and we have to learn to love ourselves in that process.

I think that is part of that growth mindset of saying, "This works for me. This doesn't work for me." Like I was saying before, I used that Pomodoro method and it stopped working for me. But now listen to you. I'm like, "I used to be really productive when I got together with my writing friends one day a week."

And we had again that morning where we would write together. I'm like, "I wonder if I should start doing that again." And what you were saying about that group encouraging you to get all that stuff done. I'm like, "Maybe I should consider it." Because it works for some people. It doesn't work for other people and that's okay.

But finding that rhythm that works for you and like I said, for me, that rhythm of the meditation and the mindfulness and doing my yoga pose. Now I'm going to add a new pose that works for me. But some people that doesn't work for it and that's okay, but find that rhythm that works for you and find those things that can make you a little more efficient and effective.

So maybe you're not like me. You don't have that. I go to the chiropractor once a week, so I batch all of my errands with going to the chiropractor that one day a week. So the rest of my days are free to not run errands, but figure out what kind of system would work for you and how that's going to change through your life.

Like I said before, when my kids were small, it was a totally different rhythm. Because I was racing between this lesson and that practice and this activity and that and I don't have that anymore. My kids are grown and so I get to now have a different rhythm.

[00:51:04] Embracing Flexibility and Change

Danica: That's part of that growth mindset of understanding that our rhythms and our seasons of life change.

And that's okay. And to be flexible with that and to say "This thing that used to always work for me doesn't work anymore. What should I do instead?" And be willing to move with that rather than stuck in, "But this is how I always do it." No, give yourself some grace to say, "Seasons change. My life has seasons.

I can change with those seasons and do things a little differently and it's okay."

Macarena: I love that. I love the rhythm, the idea of finding your rhythm because everybody's unique and everybody has to figure it out and we can play till it doesn't have to be a negative experience to find your rhythm. It's like a different dance. Do you prefer this music versus that music?

I love that. And then there's different rhythms. There's daily rhythms, there's weekly rhythms, monthly, seasonal, et cetera. And figuring out how to use that. Because I think one of the other mistakes we make is, by not accepting that we're human, we think things don't change. Everything is constantly changing and everything is in motion non stop.

So by connecting and using rhythms as guideposts and markers for personal development, it helps me personally, and I've seen it with my clients, it really helps us to feel like we are a part of something else, something bigger, something innate in natural world.

Danica: And I think it gives you that sense, having that grace for the rhythm. Like I know what my ideal day looks like. Ideally I'm going to wake up. I'm going to do my meditation. I'm going to get out of bed. I'm going to do a couple of yoga poses. I'm going to brush my teeth. I'm And then I'm going to have some quiet time with my journal and get a little work done and have some breakfast.

And I know what that ideal breakfast would look like and then go into what I would do in the morning and then my lunch and then my afternoon and my evening and then how my evening routine for winding down and quiet down and look what that does. But I'll be honest, that maybe happens two or three times a month because life is messy and life changes. Yeah, but then to roll with that and say, "Okay this isn't my ideal day, but here are the things that I know set me up for success."

For example, when you and I started recording this, I knew that our recording time was at my preferred lunchtime and I was not hungry for lunch before then because my preferred lunchtime is when I get hungry for lunch. And so I was like, Okay, but I know I'm going to get hungry during the recording so I'm going to have a granola bar. And it will be enough so that I'm not going to be starving in the middle of video. And then when we get done, I'm going to have a later lunch. It's going to be a light lunch because tonight I'm meeting some friends for dinner. I'll have a little something in my stomach, but then I can enjoy this nice dinner with my friends.

Again, is that my perfect schedule? No. But because I know what I need and why I can then adapt it and say, "Okay, cool. This is what I'm going to do to make my day easier and have a really good day in spite of the fact that every perfect condition to make my day good isn't going to happen today."

Macarena: And it allows you to be in the flow, right? So we have our ideal. That's why when I think about schedules, I always think of a scheduled template because

Danica: Yes

Macarena: nothing is solid. Things are going to move around. Things are going to change. Yes, you set yourself up to succeed and you allowed yourself to flow

Danica: Right. And that flow is so important. And again, that set yourself up to succeed, before we started recording, you were like, "Oh yeah, and I have all of my waters here." And I thought that's such a great way to set yourself up for success because you know that you're going to need more than one water for talking today.

Macarena: I need tea.

I know that my mouth gets dry and nothing will take me out of being present than being thirsty and running out of water. So now I know.

I need to have water and a backup.

Danica: I love that. And it was the same thing with me eating my granola bar beforehand is I was not hungry, but I knew I'd need just a little bit of fuel and a little granola bar I can manage when I'm not hungry. But that gave me the energy to continue because same thing, midway through about this time if I haven't had lunch, I'm gonna be sitting here going "I want to eat. Can we hurry up so I can eat?" and then I'm not present with you. Think about those things that set you up for success because again it isn't about having that perfect circumstance or always getting it right, but knowing here are the things I know I need to succeed.

How can I, with the circumstances that I have, adjust to make that work for me? And if that's having extra water, if it's having a little snack, whatever those little things are that you need to succeed and knowing that it's going to be personal to you and thinking about those things that you need for comfort that are going to make you feel good.

Macarena: Amazing. I love it.

Okay, so as we're wrapping up here, I'm curious. What are the tips for growth mindset that you recommend?

Danica: I think the biggest thing is to really understand that this is a big adventure. And even though we have a map, we don't really have the map and to just be flexible and to say, "Okay, this is a lesson" and if something goes wrong, rather than use that as "Oh, this is so devastating." And dwell on that to say, "Okay, how can I use this as fuel to move forward?" And going back to what we're talking about just now, in terms of setting yourself up for success, what are my optimal conditions to set myself up for success?

In the middle of a crisis or in the middle of something that's not going well, how could I bring some of those things in that will help me? Is that taking a minute to do a quick meditation? Is that taking a moment to notice your five senses? Is that a moment of connecting with your spirit? Is it saying, "Wow, I need a drink of water right now. I need food right now. I need to take a rest." We didn't talk about this, I'm a big napper, I know not everyone's a napper, but just give yourself that permission to say, I can go lay down for five or 10 minutes. In my case, it's an hour. But to give yourself permission to know that's what your body needs.

That's what your mind needs. That's what your spirit needs. And to really take stock of those things that you need to feel good. And if one of those things is missing to say, "Okay, I may not be able to have this thing right now, but how can I bring that into my life and how can I use this to have something beautiful in my life.

And how can I embrace this uncertainty and be okay with it and choose to see it as a fun adventure instead of being afraid, because it is a fun adventure if you let it be.

Macarena: It is. And you remind me of, I love this saying, luck favors the prepared. And not just that, but this is how we build inner trust, self trust and resilience. By correcting and continue, by setting an ideal and how we handle that, because I think the resilience comes from having range.

We need to be able to handle disappointment and setbacks equally as we celebrate the wins and when we're moving in the direction we want.

Danica: Yes. And so much of that really is doing that inner work. I think we talk a lot about the inner work in psychological terms, which is super important. But also going back to those basic needs and knowing yourself enough to know, "Okay, what is the longest that I can go without having a meal and have that affect my performance?"

I'm one of those people, I get low blood sugar, so I know I need to eat every couple of hours. I need to have water every couple of hours and frankly not every couple of hours. We need to have it way more often than that. We don't drink enough water. But knowing yourself and doing that work on yourself.

Because even though, yes, you can look up, what's the optimum amount of water to drink every day, but you yourself, have an optimal amount of water you need that's personal to you that you need to discover and to play with that and be curious about that. Okay, it says "I need 8 ounces of water for however many pounds of body weight I have every day.

is that true for me? Cool, let me see what it's like to drink that amount of water every day for a week. How do I feel? Okay, cool. Maybe I need more. Maybe I actually do need less." But play with that and play with how that's going to feel and use it as an experiment. I think it's so less threatening when you say this is an experiment and I don't know about you but when I was a kid, I would do experiments and we would make potions with like mud and dirt and water and all the sticks and leaves.

It was just a fun experiment. I tell my kids who are young adults now and living their lives, as long as it's not something that's going to be fatal and going to kill you, it's an experiment and embrace it and try it. And that's why I like it going back to my year of yes.

It's an experiment and I get to try new things. And if it doesn't work, cool. I learned a lesson. I learned what doesn't work for me. If it works, cool. I just learned something really new and really exciting that I can put into my life. That's going to enrich my life.

Macarena: I love that playful attitude. So it sounds like tips for having a growth mindset include being present, being playful, giving ourselves grace, not being afraid to experiment. I think, gentle and kindness, especially with ourselves and each other. It's so important.

Danica: Yeah. I really do. Like I said, that loving kindness meditation for me is so huge because it really is about giving people that love and that kindness. And again, you start with yourself because you cannot fill someone's bucket from your empty well. And so you fill your well first and give yourself that loving kindness because you often are the one most in need of it.

Macarena: So cool. I love that meditation.

I do it sometimes. It's so lovely.

Yeah. I've got many versions. One of the things I didn't say earlier about meditation is that there's really no wrong way to meditate. I remember when I was in my TM classes, it was really funny to observe how everybody kept asking "What if this?"

And it's "There's no wrong way to do this." "But what about this?" " There's no wrong way to do this."

Danica: And it's so important. Even I got caught up in that. I go to a breath work group once a month. And I remember in the breath work class, because part of it, you put your hands on different parts to breathe into. And I was like, "Okay, but do I do this way or this way?"

And she's "Doesn't matter. Whatever way works for you." I'm like, "Oh, yeah." It's so funny how we get caught up in those rules for ourselves. I think that you have to remember there really are no rules. Let's not do anything that's gonna get you killed or kill somebody else or harm someone but ultimately, that's the lesson. If maybe you don't do it, it doesn't matter because you've learned something from it. And as long as you've taken that lesson from it and can learn from it, you did it right.

Macarena: Especially like meditation, the whole point of is. Giving your brain a break. And you can do that open ended or with focus, right? It works both ways. What happens when we're in the shower effect, because we're doing something mundane, suddenly we're super creative, right?

So anything can be a meditation, walking, doing the dishes.

Danica: It really can.

Macarena: Brushing your hair, whatever. All of it in some ways is meditative.

Danica: Right.

Macarena: It's just funny how humans, we try to complicate things so much and make things way more complicated. So I love, I love that saying, you never get it wrong and you never get it done. So live accordingly.

Danica: Yeah, exactly. And I think for me, it's really about giving that grace to yourself and saying, "Hey, I just meditated." Maybe I didn't do it right, but there isn't a right or wrong way, as we just said, but you've just given yourself a gift. "And to say, Hey, I gave a gift to myself today and that's enough."

And to embrace that.

Macarena: And giving yourself that gift, no matter how long, if it's three minutes, 30 seconds is better than not at all. Zero times anything is zero.

Danica: Yeah. And even though I said, I have my meditation practice, I do it when I first wake up and when I go to bed, it's not some of these gurus who are like, "I do 30 minutes every day". But no, I don't like it's probably a maximum of five minutes but it's enough that I'm tuning in with my body and I'm tuning in with myself.

And sometimes that's really all we need. I wouldn't love to be able to meditate all of that time because I just have too many other cool things I want to do. As you pointed out, meditation could be anything, and I also love doing meditative walks, things like that. Again, like for me to sit, "I'm going to sit in this meditative pose for 30 minutes". That does not attract me at all. But to have my five minutes and then maybe go on a meditative walk or I like to do art journaling, which is also a form of meditation and all these other things that you can do. Don't limit yourself.

Macarena: The rhythm doesn't have to be daily. Maybe some people's meditative is weekly. It's whatever inspires, whatever enriches the individual.

Danica: Exactly. Exactly.

Macarena: But I know some Buddhists hours a day, hours a day. Like three hours, crazy thing, four hours a day. To me that's incredible. That's beautiful.

I live in a city with a family, so I can't do that. It doesn't work for me. I love to find people that works for. That is amazing.

Danica: Yeah, I'm not sure I could do that. One of my friends does this meditation retreat that it's actually a three day meditation retreat where you spend three days in retreat, just three days of solid meditating. And holy cow. I don't know that I would have the fortitude to do that. And now that I'm on this adventure of life and realizing, Hey, it is an adventure.

At some point, I probably will try it just to see if I can do it.

Macarena: I could do that. I could, yeah, I can moonlight anything. Oh yeah. My friends have done stuff where they don't speak for 10 days. And my two friends that have done that are like huge talkers. So it was like incredible, but yeah, I can go travel. I can do three days of anything. I could do an hour of anything.

I could do three days of anything, especially not at home. The hard part is at home, because there's too many distractions here. But if I'm off someplace, retreat time is the best time. I can do it, whatever it is, I will play a hundred percent and do it for sure.

Danica: I do agree with that. It is harder to do these at home.

Macarena: It's not if, it's where.

Danica: I have done a silent retreat where we just go in silence. It used to be something I did every year. We would go on a silent retreat and you would spend the entire weekend not speaking and it was beautiful. So that is wonderful, but yeah, I couldn't do that at home.

It really is again, finding the right time, the right place and how it all comes together and just being okay with what happens.

Macarena: So what kind of novels do you write?

Danica: Okay. I write romance. Right now, I'm writing Christian romance, but I am definitely doing some other fun stuff under a pen name. Just to go out and have fun with it. Yeah. But primarily romance. And again, I'm working on a mindfulness mindset book that I will eventually have finished. What I think is probably gonna happen is when I finish, it's gonna be like five or six books right at once.

Macarena: I know that. Sadly or gratefully, I know that rhythm. "It's one book. Oh no, it's not. It's a bunch."

Danica: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But I think that's the fun adventure of it. If anything, it assures longevity in our writing careers.

Macarena: Yeah. There's no shortage of fun, creative things to explore. I think we're lucky like that.

Danica: Exactly. It makes it fun.

Thank you for this inspiring conversation. It's so fun to speak to someone who, I think in some ways we share a brain. We are unique yet so similar.

And I like that too, because I think there's a nice synergy of just that mindset of, we both have really cool things to contribute. And even though it's similar, we have enough differences that kind of vibe that there's something that we both get to contribute. And that's really the beauty.

Macarena: And I love that because I always learn a lot talking to you and it helps me be better. Hopefully, that is something that we can share that into the world. Yes. And I love this whole concept of if we're each shining. When we come together, we shine brighter. I love that.

Danica: So right now, tell me about your coaching. So you work only with authors or with other types of humans?

Primarily authors, but I'm very open to working with other types of humans. I work with a lot of people just in general. Because the story thing is my jam. But yeah, I work with pretty much anyone. Again, the whole target market thing, focusing on authors but just that idea of looking at how your story can contribute to the world.

You think of that in terms of authors who like are writing a story and putting that out there, but I do think even if you don't have a book in you, you still have your story and that story matters. It's so important for you to feel like you're contributing to the world and that what you do contribute is valuable.

That's something that in my books is an important theme is that that contribution is valuable and that story is valuable. For me, it really is talking about what a value you have to give to the world because it's there. I want to be able to support people in doing that and helping them understand their value and putting that value into the world because the world needs you and the world needs your story.

Macarena: Absolutely. And I used being a recovering workaholic, I was so career driven and I've come to learn that we contribute so much just by being who we are, not by the things we do. Of course, that sometimes can exponentially help people, but we show up with being present. For those of us who see ourselves as lighthouses, sure, we're able to help each other by who we are and what we do, but it's so important to keep in mind that who we are is enough and just showing up and being present is enough.

Danica: Because you don't know what that piece of your presence is contributing to someone. Maybe it is that you held the door open for somebody. Maybe it is that you smiled at somebody. Maybe it is that you offered your seat to an elderly person on the bus, or maybe it wasn't an elderly person.

Maybe it was just someone who was really tired and doing the best they could. And you're just "Hey, have a seat." And you don't know that unless you show up and unless you are willing to engage with that story and notice those things around you. That's the challenge. The beauty of this human experience that we have is we are experiencing it together and we can choose whether or not that experience is something that we are helping and contributing to, or if we're just totally oblivious to it.

And the more we engage with that, the better that world is going to be.

Macarena: Beautiful. You just said a key word, together, doing stuff together.

[01:09:34] The Power of Community

Macarena: That's come to my attention recently, that community is such a big, important part of my process that I really was not recognizing. I just took it for granted. Thank you for doing this with me and thank you for being a part of my community.

Danica: Oh, absolutely. And thank you for being part of my community. As I told you privately, having you in my community and the community that we're part of has been so powerful and impactful to me that I'm just so grateful to you and to all the community surrounding me. I think when you are given that kind of gift from someone else, you want to share that gift with the world.

And so that's what I'm doing, sharing those beautiful things in that beautiful community that has been shared with me. I want to give that to others.

Macarena: That is beautiful. What a wonderful way to end. Thank you, Danica Favorite. I really appreciate you and all your contributions.

Danica: Thank you. I appreciate being here.

[01:10:27] Conclusion and Podcast Mention

Macarena: And I had forgotten to ask you about your podcast. You want to mention it?

Danica: Oh yeah. Part of the growth mindset idea, I have a podcast with my good friend, Steph Pajonas. It's called Brave New Bookshelf Perspectives in AI and Publishing. And the reason we started it is because we saw the AI thing coming. It was a thing and we knew AI was coming and it wasn't going to go anywhere.

And so we made the choice. We could either fight it or we could say, "Okay, let's learn as much as we can about it and learn to embrace it, learn how to harness it for good. And. What can we do with AI?" We started that learning process and then we started our podcast and we bring in authors to come in as guests and they get to tell us how they're using it.

Some people are using it for art. Some people are using it for writing. Some people say, "Nope, we don't want to use it for those two things. We're going to use it for marketing." Some people are using it to make their lives more efficient. It really is cool to see all the different ways people can use it and learn.

I'm excited because we're going to have you as a guest and just really understanding that there is no one size fits all. I love that idea of just what can we learn? How can we apply it? What's for me? What's not for me? At the end of the day, we get to make that choice for ourselves and it's okay.

So hopefully we can be a really good support for people who are choosing to say, "I don't know what this AI thing is about, but I'm going to learn."

Macarena: Beautifully said. So I think we got it. But oh my God. Thank you so much.

Danica: Thank you. This was wonderful.

Macarena: Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time.

Danica: All right. Take care.

Outro: Wow. What a journey we've been on together. I hope this episode has left you feeling inspired, empowered, and ready to embrace the magic in your life. I'd love to hear about your experiences and insights. Please tag me on social media using the hashtag magical mindset podcast, or leave me a DM to share your wins, challenges, and aha moments.

Let's keep the conversation and the magic flowing beyond this episode. Thank you so much for tuning in and for being a. Until next time, keep shining your light and embracing the wonder of each day. You've got this!