MIKE: Hey Cleaning Nation! Today I have Tracy and her special guest, her cat on the call! A lot of times our clients have the thought that if they just had a specific thing everything would be magically fixed. How does that look from your end?

TRACY: When I am working with our clients what I see is that they aren’t focused on the right thing. We are naturally taught to focus on the external things instead of the internal. Whatever we think about always gets bigger and the truth is we have very little control over the external issues.

MIKE: What about people who say that you don’t understand their issue.

TRACY: What we focus on not only becomes bigger but “truer”. The more we focus on finding evidence of it, it becomes easier to blame the external issues instead of the internal issues.

MIKE: So for me, I’m a very tactical person. I’ll be like “Yes! Tell me what to do!”. But on the other side, we have people who are asking how they need to change, and how they can become different. There is a reality of if my car is broken I can’t get to work. How do we know how to walk the line of dealing with problems as they actually exist but dealing with not being incapacitated by them?

TRACY: So I am going to use the example you gave me. You said that “my car broke down so I can’t get to work”. So there was some truth there but also a lie. You can get to work. That is a story you are telling yourself. So the first thing we want to do is be very aware of the things we tell ourselves. When we get frustrated we are constantly banging our heads against the wall. When you hear yourself saying something counter to the thing you won’t like “I want to grow but…” you know it is a lie. Now, we need to ask ourselves if this is this truth and is it going to get me closer or further to my goal. If the answer is it’s not helping you, you need to change your thinking around to something that is helpful.

MIKE: Oftentimes the thing that feels good and comfortable right now isn’t going to feel good later.

TRACY: That’s so true. I even have a saying for that which is “It feels good to argue for our limitations.”

MIKE: So how do we take steps forward to move towards the light and how do we bring that into our business?

TRACY: Whenever I find myself stuck in that place of “truths” and finally get out of it, I feel like I am in a fog. The first thing I would say is to get out of the state that you are in. You can do this by moving your body and focusing on getting your mind clear. Then let yourself off the hook. Allow yourself to say I don’t know the answer and then think about someone who is successful in your field. What would they do? This gets rid of the fog and gives you a starting point again.