Feeling stuck and not reaching your full potential? This episode is your roadmap to unlocking a life of purpose and achievement! Join Jenniffer Cassetta as she chats with Amanda Robbins, co-founder of Performance Coach University (PCU). Amanda shares her inspiring journey from personal development newbie to passionate entrepreneur, all thanks to the powerful impact of coaching. Discover how PCU can equip you to not only reach your goals but also make a positive difference in the world. Also learn how to navigate personal growth alongside loved ones, even if they’re not on the same path. Get ready to be empowered, inspired, and equipped to live your best life!
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Elevating Conversations And Unlocking Human Potential With Amanda Robbins
I have such a special guest to share with you. She is Amanda Robbins, the co-founder of PCU, which is Performance Coach University, which I happen to be a very proud graduate of. Welcome, Amanda.
Thank you. I’m so excited to be here. What an honor and a privilege. Very cool.
It’s a privilege for me and everyone tuning in, trust me, because I know this conversation is going to be amazing and it’s going to be elevated, which we’re going to talk about in a bit, having elevated conversations. Usually, I want to start by sharing with everyone how I curate these amazing guests, and how I choose them.
I chose them because they’re all black belts in badassery. If you’re tuning in, you’ve heard this already, a black belt in badassery is someone who has overcome challenges and developed inner strength, tools, wisdom, power, and confidence, who then helps others rise with that. Amanda is someone who I look to as a mentor.
Performance Coach University
I look up to and she has this ability to light people up when you talk to her. You’re all going to get to witness that. You’re going to be able to bask in her light during this next interview. Thank you so much, Amanda, for coming. I mean it. It’s not just coming from me. I want everyone to hear what PCU is and what it’s all about. Can you share with everyone real quick before we dive into your personal story?
Performance Coach University is the first and number one performance coaching training in the world specifically focused on activating human performance. What we do is we optimize humans to perform at their highest level and tap into their potential. There’s so much potential inside of every one of us. The beauty of Performance Coach University is one thing that I am humbled by every single day, I truly am.
I can’t believe I get to do this work specifically with these people. It’s because it’s people like you who are committed to being the best version of themselves, to tapping into their highest potential. This is the kicker, it’s not all about them. They have big hearts and they want to help others do the same. I get choked up thinking about it.
I can’t believe I get to do this work. Not only see these results, but have this army, this force for good out there in the world that’s helping others do the same. We’re proudly double accredited. I’ve co-founded Performance Coach University with my husband, Jairek. If anyone knows Jairek Robbins, he is such a badass himself.
He was born and raised in the personal development industry and to walk alongside him in this life, to be able to share these gifts and he was born into it. I got into personal development, which we’ll talk about later, and into coaching for other reasons, which were part of my biggest triumphs and challenges in life. Anyway, it’s a double-accredited program, and we get people certified and accredited. It’s incredible.
We support them in their business as well if they’re looking to grow their coaching business, or if they’re looking to amplify their team coaching to help them integrate this with their teams or into their organization. We’re super proud. I could go on for days. One thing I do want to mention while we’re talking about it is, I don’t even know if this Jen, we have our one billion mission now that we’ve rolled out.
We’ve helped through PCU, we’ve helped support, protect, and save children from sex trafficking. We’ve helped build hospitals and schools. We’ve helped get clean water. That’s what coaching is about. It’s a service-based industry. It’s a service-based profession. We’re not just teaching people to become great coaches in the world, we’re also giving back to humanity.
Our latest mission and I’m so excited about this, is our 1 billion mission, and it’s helping reach 1 billion youth around the world. One of the things that people say the most when they come out of this program is I wish I had these tools when I was younger. I’d be on such, maybe they saved themselves money or time in therapy, or they would have hit their goals faster.
They would have overcome those obstacles with more ease. They tapped into their truest potential earlier on in life. We’re like, “It doesn’t need to be like that. We don’t need to wait until someone is 30, 40, or 50 years old to get these tools and this program or to have a coach.” What we did was we launched the One for One program, which is supporting teachers with a teacher’s version of Performance Coach University.
It is because they impact so many kids’ lives, and so every time someone enrolls in a PCU, right now it’s One for One. Eventually, we’re going to one to three, and then one to five. You would sponsor a teacher to take these tools to their classrooms and to their communities to help impact over a billion lives in the world. I’m so excited about that. That’s one of our missions right now, in addition to creating badass coaches such as yourself.
Very cool. Very badass. More badass than I even imagined. I’m going to share a quick little story with you and everyone else about the first conversation I had with Amanda. Let’s rewind. It was last year, probably around this time or at the beginning year that I was setting my goals for the year. I knew that I wanted to elevate my coaching.
I’ve been a certified health coach, nutritionist, and all those things and working with people. I got siloed into this weight loss stuff that I wasn’t passionate about anymore. I wanted to take all of the mindset work and the NLP that I had been taught and that’s neuro-linguistic programming for anyone out there who doesn’t know what it is.
I needed an umbrella, something to put all these different things under and go out and help more people. I started googling. First of all, rewind. At the beginning of the year, as you all know, I do a vision boarding class online for folks. It’s a digital vision boarding workshop. You’re making a vision board that you put on your phone screen, on your laptops, and everywhere.
You can put symbols on there. Symbols that you want to be associated with in your life that will pull you forward. They don’t have to be very specific. I have some people on my vision board and one of those people is the GOAT, Tony Robbins, who I’ve spoken about on this show, you probably know. In my early 20s, I was out there going to all the seminars, and doing the fire walk.
It is like, “Here’s my credit card. I don’t have the money, but I’m going to figure this out.” That’s how it was. Anyway, fast forward to last year, I’m googling now. I’m googling random coaching certifications. I finally came across the word, “High-performance Coaching.” I said, “That sounds good.” When you’re in the flow, you’re online, you’re researching and you start to find the right things.
It’s like breadcrumbs. I said, “Yes, yes, yes.” I go on the website and I see, “Jairek Robbins, he’s the founder. That sounds good.” I see some other people that I recognize as alumni, Rachel Rogers, and some other folks. I was, “This feels right. Let me set up a call.” I get on the call thinking that I’m going to be speaking to a salesperson somewhere maybe not even in this country, who knows?
I get on the call probably a week later with this gorgeous woman and right away she says, “Your last name sounds so familiar.” “My husband has a cousin with that last name.” I’m like, “No way, my last name is not very common.” That’s right. I said, “Who’s your husband?” She goes, “Jairek Robbins.” I’m like, “Oh my God.”
Amanda, I’ve never told you this, but in my head, I’m thinking, “Jen, Tony Robbins is one of your mentors, idols put him up there on the top three people you’d want to meet one day, and you’re talking to his daughter-in-law. Don’t fangirl, don’t fangirl. Be cool, be calm.” Honestly, we wound up having such a beautiful conversation that we didn’t even need to talk about it because it wasn’t important.
What was important was learning about the work that you do at PCU and I wanted in. That was it for me. I’m a graduate of Performance Coach University now. I’m using it in my work, in my life, in my conversations, in this show. I want to thank you for all the mentorship, teaching, and support. I love that you give to all of us including my husband, who is also a graduate.
I love having you guys. You’re so committed to this work and that’s something that we look forward to, someone that we believe that you need to walk your talk, not tell people what to do, or coach people who do not have their own coach, or not be doing the coach. To be working on those same things yourself, as far as it comes to optimizing the best version of yourself, your performance or potential, or the impact you have on the world. I’m so proud. Again, it’s an honor and a privilege. I’m so glad you’re in and that’s such a sweet story. I’m just, thanks for trusting us and doing the work and you guys are badasses yourself. It’s very cool. I love that you’re getting so much out of it.
Amanda’s Journey
Thank you, back to you. I tell that story more because of the vision boarding and how I’m serious about it. I have a few stories from my vision board that have manifested in life in ways that I would never have expected and that’s the beauty, the vision, and the magic of this work. Amanda, I want to know more about your journey. How does one become the co-founder of a high-performance coaching certification program?
What I love to dig into in this show is what we see on the outside the success, the give back, and the amazing work that you do. What we don’t see is probably the personal challenges and struggles that you have overcome to get here. Can you share a little bit about your background and then maybe share what some of those challenges were?
My background is so different from you and Jairek’s. One thing I love about you guys and others out there, you’re few and far between, but those 20-somethings that we’re going to personal development events, come on, are you serious? I was always this natural-born leader and loved people and teams. As far as I went, it was in the leadership world. I couldn’t get enough of John Maxwell’s content and stuff like that, reading about leadership. We’re big on company culture and my teams to the point that before working from home was a thing, I sometimes would try to work outside the office.
My boss at the time, who was a great mentor of mine, would say, “I need you in the office because you lift the morale here and the energy and everything.” I was like that’s great and I need to hunker down and focus too. It’s been such a blessing, but one interesting thing, and its funny side story is when I first met Jairek. My husband, similar to you, grew up with this stuff, and he was going and studying with monks at a young age.
Sorry, not similar to me. My dad was into self-help and listening to things, but he wasn’t Tony Robbins, so it’s very different.
Sure, but I will still say that whether your dad was Tony Robbins or whether your dad was listening to Tony Robbins, that parenting and that role modeling and whether it’s learning through osmosis or being in that. I’m honestly like Jairek’s dad gets a lot of credit. His mom is phenomenal. She’s gone now, but she lived that work as well.
I think it’s so easy to focus on her and one thing I love is in interviews, he’ll shine the light on his mom too, because she’s breaking bricks with her bare hands when he was in her belly. She was doing the work too. It’s beautiful but what I’m trying to say is this personal development stuff was that’s weird stuff that people from California do. I’m from Michigan.
It’s very weird. It’s so funny. At our wedding, it couldn’t have been more different. It’s like here’s a bunch of Midwesterners or let’s have a good time. Jairek’s side was more of very into personal development. It was a very stark contrast and so fun and kooky. Anyway, back to how PCU came to be and founded this great training program and organization.
When I met Jairek, it was so funny. My only personal development was the things that I had taught myself. It was looking at life and thinking, “Why is someone else’s life like this? Why is ours like that?” Why are we on food stamps? Why am I getting free lunches?” We’re doing layaway. It’s not prescribed. I figured things out by then, but at a young age, I was thinking, “Why do these friends over here have a boat? They live on the lake. They have a huge house.”
I observe. I’ve always been a good observer of why is this different. My dad works hard too and my mom works hard too to take care of us. Why is it like this? I’m realizing, putting those pieces together, taking clues, and figuring out what they all have in common. Success leaves clues. What do they have in common? They invest in themselves. They had a higher education.
You’re talking about the other families.
The other families, whereas with my family, it stopped at no more than high school. Mental health was a challenge, among other things. There’s a list of things, there’s such stark contrast. I took notes and I started to apply them to my life. When I met Jairek fast forward, it was beautiful because I had done so much work and he thought for sure. He was like, you’ve got to be a closet Tony Robbins fan. You know this stuff and I asked, “Who is that?” No joke. I had no idea who Tony Robbins was.
I think I’ve read a famous quote by him but who’s this guy? It was funny. The first event I went to, I was like, “What is going on?” It was mind-blowing. When Jairek and I met, my background was in marketing and business. The only personal development I had done was the work I had done on myself by life lessons and applying them, noticing differences between success and setbacks and failure and victim and blaming versus overcoming and persevering and resilience and things of that nature, just life lessons.
Whereas, Jairek had studied his whole life. What was beautiful was before I even knew about coaching, Jairek was coaching, of course. He’d been coaching for over 20 years now. When I met him 12 years ago, this is funny, you’re going to love this. What do you do on our first meeting? He traveled all over, I had traveled all over, but I was starting, like I’d started a business and stuff like that and studied overseas. I said, “This guy’s got to be in sales.
He said, “I’m a motivational speaker,” for lack of better words. I said to him, “So am I, except I don’t get paid for it.” We both laugh. I was thinking, “This guy gets paid for it? I don’t get paid.” As we started hanging out, I learned that he does coaching. I’m like, “Yes, I coach too.” I lead teams. That’s what most coaches think. A lot of people, before they take proper coach training, learn what true coaching is and learn coaching frameworks and the way to communicate and listen as a coach. Ethics of a coach, all those things. Before you do that, there are so many people that we get. I love them because I used to be them. I love their hearts and their intention. They are saying that they are coaching and they’re managing or advising or consulting but they’re calling it coaching. That’s okay.
Still good. Your intention is there but for me, it blew my mind. It does for others as well that come through the program now. When I heard a coaching conversation that he was on, I would say, “How did that go?” He would share only what was available to share. He’s working through this or that and keeping it confidential. I would say, “Did you do this or that? What about that?”
I realized in a conversation with Jairek twelve years ago that I was only scratching the surface. Jairek in a conversation, if I was able to overhear a little bit of it, I could hear him going so much deeper into it. That’s when the light bulb went off in my head, which was, “I’m not coaching.” I’m a great cheerleader. I’m a great maybe motivator, but that wears off.
I’m a great trainer, I’m a great teacher, I’m a great leader, but I am not coaching because if that’s coaching, that guy is making lasting change and getting massive results for his clients. If anyone can relate to I love cheering people on, I love supporting people, I see their potential, and you know that you probably could do even more or you want to.
That is such a moment to lean into that and say, “How can I sharpen those tools? How can I get better at this?” For me, that was my coaching journey, seeing that real coaching goes deeper. It’s so much more than what most managers, trainers, or consultants do, I call them advice givers if you’re giving advice, there’s so much more to it.
He was a great example. I started taking coach training, not just learning from him, but also taking other training. It blew my mind. I was like, “I want to go back to all those people I had worked with before and all the people. I want to do that again. I know I would have such a bigger impact and a lasting impact on their lives.” I know that I did, but you know you could have done better. If you’re anything like us, you don’t settle for average results. Anyway, that was the beginning of it.
I can relate because all those clients that I work with, especially the ones that came to me for weight loss, and this is where it started to go sideways where I didn’t want to do it anymore because when people didn’t get results, I know it’s because of mindset. That’s where we should have been working the whole time because it’s not about me telling you what to eat or how to exercise. You can go online and get that information. You don’t need to pay me. That’s the difference.
That’s it too. If you are a coach or any type of coach and you’re not getting the results from your clients., you know intuitively it’s their mindset, but you may not have had the training or the resources. You don’t have leverage. You haven’t been able to dig deep into what it is. They’re motivators. I could rave about it because it’s been such a game changer for me and who I am and the impact I can make in other people’s lives by going through formal training.
Taking the mentors we have in this program that have such incredibly rich backgrounds of their experience, of the results that they’ve got their clients, the impact they’ve made, the training they’ve taken, and to take all of their brains and put them into this program, and to train people on those tools is so incredible. That’s it. That’s how it came to be. I realized I wasn’t coaching and dove into it, whereas Jairek had been in it his whole life. We put it together and I honestly supported it and through the process. I see this needs to be out in the world.
I haven’t seen a training that’s this good, this rich and robust. We made it and probably it’s double accredited and we continue to add more accreditations to it. It’s been fun. It’s been such a joy. We’ve trained leaders in Fortune 100, 500 companies. We have elite military, professional athletes, speakers, trainers, and coaches like you. You see the community. We should talk about something else, though, because I could rave forever about it.
Stumbling Blocks: Suppressing Emotions
It’s about you and your journey, how you got there. What were some of the major stumbling blocks? What are the things that you had to go through on this journey? It wasn’t all smooth sailing, I’m sure, both personally and professionally that has come up for you.
This is a great question. How does one, aside from food stamps or free lunches, even think about personal development? When you think of Maslow’s hierarchy, that’s pretty high up there. The basics were hardly being covered. The real answer and what makes me so passionate, why I get teared up about that one billion youth mission of reaching one billion lives around the world, specifically youth with these tools, and why I feel so passionate about Performance Coaching University and the Performance Coaching Tools in it is because I think everyone has a story that relates to their biggest passion. Mine are mental health struggles in my family.
They were unfortunately a bit rampant in my immediate family. There’s a lot of pain from that. At a very young age, someone extremely close to me tried to take their life more than one time. the way it was explained to me if anyone’s ever been through that, that there’s so much emotion that comes up. “How could they do this? How could they do this to me? How could they do this to themselves?” Just so much comes up.
I’ve talked to a couple of therapists about it and I don’t remember the specific age I was, but I think early middle school. When that happened, the way it was explained to me was, “Amanda, why would you do that?” Sometimes people have these voices in their head and they don’t necessarily say good things to them.
At that age, I could relate to that in a way. If we think about our conscious or internal dialogue or narrative, I can relate to that like, “Am I going to get in trouble if I do this?” I’ve been thinking about that, “Am I going to get in trouble if my parents find out that I did this with my best friend and whatever?” We’re getting into some mischief. I can relate to that. With her, it causes her a lot of pain and sadness.
With a young brain at that age, the best thinking, and it served me for a long time, the best thinking was avoid that internal dialogue. Shut it down. The negative ones, the ones that are talking unkindly to you, speaking down to you, making you feel sad, shut it down, sadness. It was also a struggle with depression. I would see sadness as if you feel sad, if you have sad voices, if you feel sad, it’s going to lead you to depression. If you’re depressed, it will take your life and if you try to do that, you will hurt the people around you.
At a very young age, that’s the best I could make of it, which served me for a very long time. I remember in high school, someone going down the hall and saying, “Amanda, you’re always so happy. You’re always so smiling.” The truth is it was because for so many years I had conditioned myself to avoid sadness at all costs. Which served. I only focus on the positive, be happy. The challenging part was it wasn’t until I felt safe enough in a relationship, specifically with my husband now, that I could go and with some reflection as an adult from others asking, “Are you okay with being sad?” I replied, “Of course I am.”
I didn’t realize I was suppressing an emotion and we know as coaches or anyone that’s done this work, whether a therapist or someone in somatics or anything, all emotions fully lead back to joy. It’s never a healthy thing to suppress an emotion. We want to make peace with that emotion but I had made sadness such a bad thing.
I could have written the movie Inside Out before it was a thing because that’s how I operated my life. Joy was in control and sadness had no place here. When that movie came out, I was like, “That is how I’ve operated in my life for so long.” Luckily, what’s so beautiful is Inside Out concluded. It took me a little bit longer to get to, which was sadness has a place. They all do.
When we make one emotion, the bad guy, we are not fully feeling and experiencing life. The biggest challenge was almost losing someone extremely close to me and how I work through that was by minding my internal dialogue in a way that served me. Eventually, I realized sometimes we have to check ourselves. We have to think, “That was serving me for so long but is it still serving me now?”
Did you take time to question your own thinking? It evolved now. Now it’s not that sadness is bad, it’s that obviously if we get into a pattern of negative thinking and that’s now our new default and all we see is dark and gloomy and the world’s against us and I’m out of control. That is a pattern of thinking we want to change,
Sadness, like any other emotion, is nothing more than a cloud floating through the sky. If we held our thumb over a hose, it’s going to burst out. If you hold your thumb over sadness, now you’re sad. It’scrazy. I don’t want to say it like that, but if we let it flow, it flows so much smoother, and all those emotions flow through us instead of sticking with us and having so much power over us. That’s a very long story.
I love it. In the previous episode, if you listened, I talked about exactly that. I coached myself through this challenging time that I went through, losing our home. My landlord took our place back after nine years. We had to downsize. There’s all these negative things. Also the releasing of a home that you didn’t want to leave, all of that. I’m not going to dig into it anymore, other than reminding myself and you guys out there that I allowed myself to be sad about it.
I cried every day for about seven days, but I also had a limit and once I moved into this new space, I said, “Enough.” I’m not now bringing that pain into this new space to fill it up. Instead, I want to fill it with hope, love, and possibility. Unlimited possibilities of what great things could happen while I’m in this space for however long it is. I completely commend you for being able to figure that out on your own. That’s a big deal.
Thank you. I love one thing that you shared, which is important. It is that I’m going to set a timer or a limit on this. I’m going to allow myself to fully experience it, but I’m going to set some guardrails around it or some limits around it so it doesn’t permeate into the rest of my life, into all areas. I think that’s the key. One thing that’s helped too with emotions in making peace with them is even the internal dialogue is becoming aware of it.
The key thing that really helps to make peace with your emotions is just becoming aware of it.
“What is this? What’s coming up for me? What is it here to teach me?” Asking questions. That inquiry allows us to become more aware and then assess things instead of reacting to things. With that, if someone is having trouble with an emotion, another one that came up for me recently, which I was so blindsided by was regret.
I had worked with my coach on this, which was so beautiful and I’m so grateful for that session. It will forever change me. That’s the power of a coach. We realized that I had a fear of regret. She asked, “Do you have any regrets?” I replied, “No, I don’t regret anything. I did live fully. I go after it.” She said, “Interesting.”
That’s something I would say.
Here’s the key. The truth is if I have no regrets, in what way am I avoiding regrets? I had said that I avoid regrets completely. I’m going to go full tilt. We get one life, let’s go for it. With that, she said, “The practice here,” and this is what I want to share with people is that if you do struggle with certain emotions or you have difficulty expressing them, start small.
My exercise and my practice were dancing with regret in microdoses. That’s such a poppy term now. a little amount of regret. I believe somatics, they call it titration. You’re going to start very small and then slowly acknowledge what comes up in small amounts of regret, in small amounts of sadness. Suddenly what you realize is that, “I can handle sadness. I can be sad.” Eventually, you can invite more of it, not to experience more regret, not to experience more sadness. That’s not what we’re trying to manifest. What we’re trying to do is to acknowledge that we can feel that emotion. We don’t need to run for that emotion. We don’t need to avoid that emotion.
We do that by starting small because if it’s too big, then our nervous system shuts down and we go back to our old ways. We have to start small. If you want a piece of chocolate and you don’t have it, or you regret not ordering dessert, or whatever it was, I don’t know, whatever it is, where you intentionally do something that would evoke potentially a small feeling of regret or a small feeling of sadness. I don’t know how to evoke sadness, honestly, but minding the small amounts of sadness or whatever that feeling is in your life and then noticing what comes up, how you feel, and that you are safe. You’re okay and you can do that and work through it, then move on. That’s been helpful too.
Acknowledge that we can feel that emotion. We don’t need to run for that emotion. We don’t need to avoid that emotion.
A couple of things. Back to the previous episode, another thing I shared was in addition to the sadness, if I kept digging, I knew there was another emotion there and it was a shame. I think shame is something that we feel a lot that’s hard to pinpoint and something you don’t even want to admit a lot of times.
Just helping myself get to coach myself through that, saying, “What is this shame about? I feel shameful that I never bought a house.” “I feel shameful that I’m admitting to folks right now that I’ve been renting all these years and in the shoulds of society by a certain age that you’re supposed to have done all these things.” That’s what I was feeling.
I like what you’re saying. I almost pictured a valve. Open that valve a little bit at a time. The reason why is to let it pass through. We have to process. To process, you got to process it through, or else it’s going to come back and bite you in the ass in some way somewhere down the line. Don’t you think?
That’s exactly it. I like to think about it like the hose. If you put your thumb over it, it’s going to burst out with a lot of power and force. Emotions are no different. When we try to suppress them and try to avoid them, they are screaming. They have so much power over us to the point that I do whatever it takes to avoid regret.
Regret has so much power over you that it’s going to control what you do. What if you accepted it, “I regret not going on that boat with my friends but it’s okay.” I love one thing. I love that what’s come up around regret is JOMO instead of FOMO. It’s the Joy Of Missing Out and leaning into that. I was a big FOMO person. I avoid that.
One thing that you mentioned I want to talk about was shame too. What would be interesting is what was the belief around there. That’s it too because a lot of times, what I notice, and I know Brene Brown, let’s be real. One thing that I noticed is that too is behind the emotion that’s coming up, what is the belief or the story that you’re telling yourself? “By this age, I should have bought a house.” I can tell you, I have loved renting more than anything because I call a landlord to fix everything.
I follow this influencer Rumit Singh, I believe his last name, and he’s all about building wealth. He completely believes that renting is better than buying. Sometimes I listen to him to make myself feel better.
You know the work that he’s doing with the beliefs as well. It’s like what is the emotion and what’s beneath the emotion? What’s the belief? Because likely there is a belief that is either empowering us or potentially disempowering us. If we go back to being at a young age, my interpretation of suicide or attempt or depression and sadness. The belief there was sadness will lead to depression and depression will lead to this awful thing. That’s not true. It served me for a certain amount of time and then you have to ask yourself, “Is this still serving me?”
There is a belief that is either empowering us or potentially disempowering us.
If it’s making you feel disempowered or less than or shameful or sad or reactive, and not your authentic self, not your most activated like truly energized or elevated self, then there is some limiting belief or limiting story or limited identity that’s for sure holding you back that’s got to change. There’s always a root there and so it starts so much with, “What is the story that we’re telling ourselves?”
Supporting Others With Mental Health Challenges
That’s it. What is the story we’re telling ourselves? I have a question and I’m trying to think how to ask it best, but I guess growing up with someone very close to you who is depressed, has depression, however, you want to say that, and suicidal thoughts. I would love to know, how do you manage that? How do you still manage that relationship, whether it be, and now I’m talking to everyone out there, whether it be a spouse, whether it be a best friend, a parent, anyone, how do you manage to stay in your positive thoughts and moving forward in your life and still yet being able to support this person.
That’s such a good question. As you’re asking, I can feel my eyes swelling up with tears. It’s extremely hard without a doubt. I think that it’s hard for a lot of people. I know a lot of people can relate to this because what they’ll try to do is they’ll try to change that person. What do we do when someone in our life has some mental health challenges?
We can see them, but they seem to be stuck in this cycle. They’re revolving instead of evolving, I like to say. Life is going to continue to present you with problems until you revolve out of them. What I’ve done is I have looked at this person as someone that I love with all my heart. Every single person in our life is either an example of what to do in life or an inspiration in that way and in some ways they’re a warning or an example of what not to do in life. We’re all both. I don’t want to say it’s this or that. Frankly, we’re all both.
Life is going to continue to present you with problems until you revolve out of them.
There are so many facets of ourselves that it’s not one or the other.
It’s not one or the other. I misspoke there and this person in so many ways was an example of how to be so loving and such a wonderful caretaker, and also a warning of how important it is to always fill your cup first and make sure that you are not pouring from an empty cup, that you’re not outsourcing your love for yourself to others.
Often we do that. We outsource how we feel, our power, our worthiness, or our love for other people instead of tuning in because those people will come and go. Those people’s tunes may change. They might not be with us forever, but the one person in the longest relationship we’ll ever be in is the one we have with ourselves. If we can nourish and nurture that relationship we have with ourselves, that’s the best gift we can ever give to ourselves and those around us.
That was a real lesson there. What do I do with that? What do I do with someone who still is going through this challenge? It’s been a hard lesson to learn and I have to give so much credit to my husband because he’s helped me the most with this. You love them. What we want to do is we want to try to change them. We want to try to fix them. What we know as coaches is that’s not always it.
We can only help those people who want help and are willing to take the help and receive it. Receive it and they want it. That’s been the lesson there is to love them as they are. With anyone that’s going through that in my life and my family. Think about it too, even if you’re not going through that, what is the greatest gift you could ever receive from anyone close to you? It is to love me. Love me for who I am and all that I am, not how you want me to be, not who you think I should be, not what you wish I would have done, but love me as I am. What a gift to give to others. feel that for yourself.
It’s a beautiful thing. I’m giving myself a blanket of love right now, but I’m also reflecting on past relationships and how I could have been different from others as well. I think as I’m growing, as a coach, as a human, getting older, I’m more able to do that. This whole thread for me, is personal development. Thinking that everyone can change themselves. Everyone has the power to be better, do better, and be an awesome human. I can believe that and also still love on folks who don’t want that for themselves or can’t even imagine that for themselves.
I think with that as well, there are a couple of things coming up. I like to use this analogy of when someone has fallen off the side of a boat and you’re throwing out a lifesaver. Instead of taking the lifesaver and trying to be a part of their own rescue, they’re pulling you down with them. I choose not to be pulled down in your story and your victimness and your suffering. I will not be pulled down there.
I’m going to take care of myself and I’m going to love you as you are. I may offer. This is the key thing. We’re not projecting on someone. It’s easy to project. You should do this. You need to do this. Have you tried this? Instead, love them as they are and then invite them, “I’m doing this work. I’m listening.” I remember one time I shared with my parents tapping, “Let’s do this tapping thing. Will you do it with me?”
They did, and they thought I was the kookiest person ever. I said, “Just try it.” I wouldn’t tell them to do it. It’s an invitation. “Would you like to do it with me?” I love that. That could be their life preserver, and they can choose whether they take it or not but they’re not going to take me with them. That’s been a hard thing. I’m not going to try to sugarcoat this. It’s not easy but it is a constant practice.
Visuals work for me. I don’t want to be pulled down. I’m not going to let someone who’s drowning pull me down with them, but I will throw the life preserver and I will invite them to join me. “I have a life preserver. Would you like it? Would you want to check this out?” A lot of times, I’ll focus on, “Here’s what I’m doing,” and I take nothing as personal if they don’t want to do it.
That’s hard.
It’s a choice. It is hard, but it is a choice. Sometimes choices are hard and we have to make them. You’re right. Do not take it personally and love them. That’s it. If you remember one thing, it’s love them for who they are and that’s it. Take the lessons that you can from it, both positive ones and the warnings of what not to do. That’s served me the most.
Elevated Conversations
This is such beautiful advice for anyone out there who’s on the personal growth path and not everyone in your surroundings is on that same path. With that, before we had this conversation, I thought of this topic. We’re going to start to recap everything soon, but I wanted to dive quickly into the topic of elevated conversations because when I think of you and Jairek, I think, “How amazing to be co-founders of this coaching program.”
The conversations at home must be so elevated. People who have been tuning in for a while, I’ve brought up my dad. I bring him up all the time because he was my introduction to personal growth. He was listening to the Tony Robbins cassette tapes in the car when I was growing up and the Zig Ziglar quotes on the wall and his Post-It notes everywhere.
As I was moving, I almost wanted to do a whole episode on this. As I was moving, I was purging a lot of stuff. Going through everything, imagine everything that you own and you’re going through each note and letter. I have all these letters from my dad and they’re either quotes or motivating me, cheerleading me. It was all once I was an adult. It wasn’t stuff when I was younger.
Our relationship grew and was even better than when I was an adult because we started to read the same self-help books, we started to share them, and we started to call each other and talk about them. We tried to challenge each other to put them into practice. Having that, now that I can look back and see that and read these notes, it’s like, “I was so lucky. I am so lucky to have had that not in my life with anyone, but my dad.”
He’s gone now, but I still feel I can have those conversations with him while reading his letters or thinking about him and how important it is for everyone to have someone in their life to have elevated conversations with. I’m so glad that my husband is now a graduate of PCU. He’s also done some other self-help work obviously in the last decade or a half that I’ve known him.
When we get in that mode, we can have conversations that are not the typical everyday conversation. It’s important. To everyone out there, do you have someone like that? If not, please find someone, but also listen to podcasts like this, get it in your vernacular, speak it, talk it, walk it. Amanda, I want to know what is it like at home. Does it get annoying ever after a while or not?
One thing I’ve learned is not to coach my husband and Jairek has also learned not to coach me. I say that with such hesitation because we inevitably can hear moments where we can see that we’re still being thought that we’re superhuman. We’re humans and we’re being human in that moment and we’re having fear or doubt or uncertainty or whatever it is that’s coming up.
We don’t want to tell the other person what to do and so what we try to do is try to drop into a coach mode. I don’t know if we even try to. It’s like, “I don’t want to tell you what to do, but I know what to do, so I’m going to coach you.” That’s a funny thing that does happen around here. We try not to do that. We’ve also learned that as lovers, as husband and wife, first and foremost, and then business partners, it’s important that we’re not coaching each other.
I think that it’s important. What is it like? We have real and raw conversations. We have a son who’s almost four. If we have a challenge in our relationship, like a disagreement, or a little fuss, then we share those out loud with him as well. It’s not like, “You’re a part of this conversation.” but he will hear us lovingly work through our emotions and our feelings.
I would say, what’s it like? It’s real and the beauty of having training and doing this work together is that we can speak the same language. Even though we’re different people, we have learned to speak in such a way through our training that doesn’t tell us to coach each other, but it tells us now we have this new way of communicating with each other that allows us when one of us isn’t at our best self.
Last night, I hurt Jairek’s feelings with such a chill comment. We went surfing today, we’re great at repairing because we’ve done this work. We went surfing and he’s feeling so much better, but I was like, “Really?” Here’s the thing, I could have been saying, “You’re being a baby.” I could have been harsh about it, honestly. I could have said, “Seriously? I was kidding. You couldn’t take a joke.”
Because I’ve done this work and this training, and I also pride myself on being very emotionally intelligent as a coach and as a leader and as a lover, I was able to go, “Oof, it’s the end of the night. It’s the end of the day. I’m tired.” I’m so sore from the workout I had yesterday. It’s bananas. Our plates are super full.
You know what? I bet the way I said that even though what I said that I think was innocent, probably came out with some energy because I’m tired and I’m sore. I bet that the way he received it, knowing that, he didn’t fall for the joke or he thought that was a whatever. I bet he’s probably tired and he’s probably overwhelmed.
When we’re in that state, we’re not our best selves and we’re not as resilient and we’re not as like, “That joke wasn’t funny, that hurt my feelings.” That’s what tough conversations look like. We don’t go, “You should have done this or you should have said that.” We are mindful. We’re just, “That wasn’t cool. That hurt my feelings.” The other person, instead of being defensive is, “That raised a flag, I hurt feelings.” “I’m so sorry I hurt your feelings.”
We don’t say, “I’m sorry that hurt your feelings. I’m sorry your feelings are hurt.” We own it. “I’m sorry I hurt your feelings.”Because if you said it, then I must have. Some conversations are like that. As far as a more positive, future and all that, it’s always a big vision. This is challenging in the beginning. Jairek is such a visionary. I’m such a strategic person. I’ll say, “Okay, how?”
It was challenging because he would say, “Here’s what we’re going to do.” Before, like ten years ago, if he said one billion youth, I would be saying, “Robbins, show me how, what’s the plan?” Now I’m like, “One billion? Let’s go.” We met in the middle there too. I will say, “Okay, one billion.” I’m not going to ask him how, I’m going to say, “Let’s do it.” I’ll figure out the how and then I’ll come back with, “Here are some ideas, what do you think?” or “Do you have any ideas?”
Yes, I would say it’s super elevated and it’s also superhuman. When we are superhuman when I say superhuman, not more than human, when we’re being humans, the beauty is that the conversations we have learned and we’ve had some work, we’ve had to meet with professionals as well and be, “We’re stuck in this funky spot.” Our egos are like, they don’t serve us in some ways, but in some ways, they can teach us.
In some ways, when we are stuck, we are not too full of ourselves to reach out for help and say, “I’m trying to explain this and they’re not getting it.” I think that’s it too. They’re elevated and then they’re superhuman in the way that we have to use all of our tools. When we forget our tools or we get stuck, then we call in, we have a board of advisors what we call, our wealth, our health, and our marriage.
Our board of advisors are these people that we trust, that we love, that champion us. They may be coaches, they may be therapists, they may be advisors of some sort, they may be family, they may be mentors or doctors. It doesn’t matter, but we have a board of advisors that we trust and we lean into them when we need it. They’re super elevated, they’re super fun, they’re big. It’s great, it’s fun. I invite everyone to be a part of it.
I think the biggest thing though, if there’s one takeaway from it, that how you have elevated conversations. It is being mindful of what mindset you’re in. What version of yourself are you in? I like to say versions. I’m in the sleepy version. What version of Jairek am I getting? What version of Amanda is he getting? Right now, tired, exhausted, and sore. God forbid, hungry is in there.
How do you have elevated conversations? It is being mindful of what mindset and what version of yourself you are in.
I think knowing the version that you are in of yourself allows you to then get back to your best. When you’re at your best, the conversations are elevated, because you’re elevated but if we’re not elevated, then we got to be able to do the scan. Sometimes you have to scan for your partner as well. What version of you are you right now? Sometimes you have to probe. “Are you tired? Are you sore?” I hope that helps.
I used to have snacks for Lindsay because early on I used to. I finally understood it was like years of this hangry thing that I didn’t understand. I thought he was getting grumpy with me or agitated with me and I took it personally. Finally, I found out, “He just needs some nuts.” He’s hungry.
Jairek does the same for me. I’ll start talking fast and maybe if I’ve been talking fast in this, I’m trying to think of the last time I ate. If I start talking fast, my blood sugar is low. I’ve tested it too. It’s like I’m running out of fuel, I’ve got to get the last words out. Jairek has done the same for me when he’s going to ask, “When’s the last time you ate?” “I don’t know.” “You’re talking fast, here, eat.” He’ll start feeding me. I love it.
Rapid Fire Questions
Grab some nuts, folks. There are so many takeaways from this episode that I can’t even do the recap because there are so many. What I would love to hear from everyone else is what was your biggest takeaway? With that said, we’re going to go right into our rapid-fire questions for Amanda. Number one, what was your favorite food as a kid?
Pizza and ice cream all day long. It probably still is. I eat healthy, but pizza and ice cream.
Those are my favorite foods right now. Two, if you could have a drink with anyone, alive or dead, who would it be and what would be your drink?
It would be with Maya Angelou. I think she’s talked about drinking whiskey or scotch and I don’t drink, but I would invite her to have green tea or whatever drink she wants. It’s Maya Angelou, but that would be my person. I love her so much.
Awesome and you could have your green juice. Number three, what’s your favorite personal growth book? We won’t tell Jairek if it’s not his.
Live it. Achieve Success by Living with Purpose by Jairek is undoubtedly one of my favorites. It was amazing. If I didn’t choose my husband’s, The Untethered Soul has served me time and time again, or of course, one that Marianne Williamson wrote, Return to Love. Return to Love or Untethered Soul. Those are two of my favorites. I gave you three.
I love them all. I’ve read them all. Last but not least, what’s your favorite hype song?
Unstoppable by Sia is number one. I have a couple, but that is it.
That’s come up.
I want to know what your favorite personal development books are.
You can’t put me on the spot like that. I have to come back for it, but I love Untethered Soul. Wayne Dyer was probably my first favorite author. If you say any of his books, I read them all and love them all. That’s what I’ll put out there but I’m sure later on this afternoon, it’ll be like, “I wish I said that.” Again, thank you, Amanda.
This has been such a gift. Many great takeaways, and so many things that we can apply right now, whether it’s in our relationships with folks who are struggling, how we stay in the boat and not go down with them, but preserve ourselves, fill our cup like you said, and be in relationship with folks and have elevated conversations. Thank you so much for all these gifts. Thank you for being here.
Thanks for having me.
This was a gift. Thanks, everybody and let us know what your favorite takeaways are. Follow along, leave us a comment, all the things, peace, love, and elevated conversations. Bye.
