Manders Mindset

Badly Done Is Better Than Well Said | Elizabeth Bruckner | 180

• Amanda Russo • Episode 180

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What if the “small changes” you keep putting off are actually the ones that would change everything?

In this episode of Manders Mindset, host Amanda Russo sits down with author and acupuncturist Elizabeth Bruckner, creator of The Homesteader Mindset, for a conversation that feels equal parts grounding, funny, and quietly life-altering. Elizabeth shares how a lifetime shaped by immigrant family history, chronic illness, and deep curiosity led her to the unexpected path of homesteading… starting in a Southern California suburb with a concrete backyard and a history of killing plants.

Together, Amanda and Elizabeth explore what integrity really means, why routines outperform willpower, and how “tiny increments” can pull someone out of survival mode and into self-trust. From habit chaining and gratitude practices to the power of frivolous joy, this episode is a reminder that healing and transformation don’t usually happen through massive overhauls… they happen through small, doable choices repeated with grace.

💡 In this episode, listeners will discover:

🌿 How chronic illness became the turning point that shifted Elizabeth’s relationship with self-care
 🏡 What “homesteading” can look like even in a suburb with limited space
 🧠 Why routines work better than willpower when building lasting habits
 ⏳ The “five-minute rule” that helps people restart habits without shame
 💛 How gratitude can interrupt hopelessness and bring someone back to the present
 ✨ Why “frivolous joy” is not optional... it’s nervous system medicine
 📝 What Elizabeth means by “badly done is better than well said” (and why it changes everything)

⏰ Timeline Summary

[0:49] Elizabeth’s core values: integrity and being a lifelong learner
 [3:11] Family history, immigration trauma, and how early stories shaped her worldview
 [10:52] Chronic illness in her 40s and the moment everything had to change
 [13:09] Starting homesteading during COVID and building community through curiosity
 [15:57] Learning languages during illness and why it helped her avoid identifying with being “sick”
 [22:08] Why Elizabeth wrote The Homesteader Mindset and the power of tiny increments
[28:01] Willpower vs. routines and how habits live in the brain differently
[31:42] Practical tools for getting back into habits (five-minute rule + function stacking)
[35:30] Gratitude as a mindset shift, especially in hard seasons
[58:35] “Badly done is better than well said” and why action beats perfection

To Connect with Amanda:

Schedule a 1:1 Virtual Breathwork Session HERE

📸 Instagram: @thebreathinggoddess

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👥 Join the Manders Mindset Facebook Community HERE!

To Connect with Elizabeth Bruckner:
Website: https://createwellnessproject.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/createwellnessproject/

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to the Manders and Mindset Podcast. Here you'll find both monologue and interviews of entrepreneurs, coaches, healers, and a variety of other people, where your host Amanda Roosevelt will discuss her own mindset and perspective, and her guest mindset and perspective on the world around us. Manders and her guests will help explain to you how shifting your mindset will shift your life.

SPEAKER_02:

Welcome to Manders Mindset, where we explore the power of shifting your mindset to shift your life. I'm your host, Amanda Musa, and I am so excited to be here today with Elizabeth Buckner, and she is the author of the Homesteader Mindset. Thank you so much for joining me.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks for having me, Amanda. It is fantastic to be here.

SPEAKER_02:

Of course. So who would you say Elizabeth is at the core?

SPEAKER_00:

That's a good question. And I've listened to your podcast a few times, so I knew this was a question and I did not prepare for it. I would like to think that Elizabeth is a woman of integrity. At the very least, I'm a woman that strives for integrity. And I am a forever learner. So I just absolutely love learning new things, which we'll probably get into when we talk about my story. I think those are the two, the two biggies that I can think of right now.

SPEAKER_02:

What would you say integrity means to you?

SPEAKER_00:

Integrity means becoming grounded in the present moment, checking in with yourself and seeing what that is. So for example, I can be really silly. Before we got on the podcast, I was a little bit silly. And that's just because I'm feeling punchy at this moment. There are times when I'm socially fatigued and not interested in being super engaging. So I might be on the quiet side. There are other times when I'm ridiculously gregarious. I'm very introverted, which confuses a lot of people because you can be gregarious and an introvert at the same time. I think that integrity for me means checking in. And I would say that up until my 20s, 30s, I was always striving to have integrity, but I didn't even know who I was at that moment. I was trying to be what I thought was the good human, that I didn't have a lot of integrity. I think I was missing out. And so now in my 50s, maybe I'm just too tired to be fake. It's not that I was fake before, it's just that I was confused. Like, you know, if I was with this particular group, then I felt like I needed to be similar to that group and so on and so forth. And now it's like, no, that's an absolute waste of time. And people are gonna like you, they're gonna just naturally like you, or they're gonna naturally not, and you're gonna have a percentage of both in your world. And the best, in the best case scenario, when I have integrity, then those people get to figure out whether they like me or not quicker. So it just saves, it saves time. So it's a little more streamlined when I have integrity.

SPEAKER_02:

That makes a lot of sense. Can you take us down memory lane? Tell us a little bit about your childhood, upbringing, family dynamic, however deep you want to take that.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. And this is an important part of why I wrote the book, actually. So I'm gonna go back to when I was just a tiny little cell inside my mom's ovary, inside my grandmom's womb. So when a fetus is formed, all of the eggs in that female fetus is formed in the ovaries while in the womb of their mother. So I actually existed in my grandma, you existed in your grandma. It's really fun science fact. And so during that time, my family of origin, my mother's family was in Belarus and Stalin stole their land. It was a communist uprising. They were homeless, they bounced around to different war refugee camps. This is at the end of World War II. And there was a lot of trauma, a lot of famine, a lot of stories of. I remember asking, like, well, who was worse? And they're like, you know, it was war. Like everything was bad. It was war. And so this these were stories that I grew up with that were just a part of my history. The idea that they would take the last of their sheets and they would try to go across to different towns and barter their sheets for potatoes. Like they explained to me how lucky I was to be an American where shelves are full and where I've never, I've never um not been able to afford a meal. So I'm very gifted in that. And it wasn't until the fall of the Iron Curtain when I went on a school trip to Russia that I actually got to see what a third world country looked like. And so I was 18 at the time. The fall of the Iron Curtain had just happened. And I remember going to stores and seeing nothing on the shelves, like beautiful big stores and one loaf of bread in the entire bakery. And I was like, what is happening? And I couldn't quite comprehend it. But it would go back to what my parents said. You know, like my mom would talk about being a migrant worker in a farm in Ohio and being stuck in this debtor society where they bought the ticket for her whole family to come over, and then the rent was expensive and the food that they fed them, and you were never going to not be a farmhand. And then this church in New Jersey, Russian Orthodox Church, paid for our freedom. Again, I'm still in my mother's ovary at this time. Like this is years before I was born. So all of that kind of gave me this growing up around immigrants, people that had really thick accents, it formed me. And I didn't realize it was forming me. I just knew that all of my aunts and uncles, which came from many different countries like Czechoslovakia, Germany, Ukraine, like these were all my aunts and uncles. And the one thing that we had in our community was that everyone spoke Russian and everyone had been affected by the war. And so it wasn't until I grew up that I understood what was going on. Now you fast forward to my 30s when I decided to go back to school for a master's in traditional Chinese medicine. I wanted something that was both fulfilling and stable. And I knew healthcare would be stable. I knew helping people get better would be fulfilling. I had a holistic bent. So I spent a year interviewing a lot of different health practitioners and came upon the idea that at 30, I wanted to be able to treat people until I was 80. And so I needed something that I could do until I was 80. And so I thought about physical therapy, but you really can't pick up a big gigantic leg, someone's leg, and move it around when you're 80. So I decided upon acupuncture. It was the best thing that I'd ever done. And what I learned in my clinic hours and my years of education was the incredible power of the body to heal. And I had been a very sickly child and had a lot of lung issues growing up. And I was raised in Western medicine, allopathic medicine is something that most people call it. And so I was during my generation, we were given antibiotics like candy. I think I probably had asthma that wasn't diagnosed. I got eventually diagnosed with adult asthma. And at this point, they were just plying me full of antibiotics. And it was just wrecking my gut, wrecking my health. And I was getting sicker and sicker and just didn't know. And what I learned in traditional Chinese medicine is that we're looking for balance in our body. And if we can find that balance within on the Western side is homeostasis, if we can find that balance, then the body can actually heal itself. So now I've got a clinic. I do a low-cost clinic at the time that I owned and I was running, and it was, I was seeing, you know, 10 patients an hour. It was very, very busy. It was fantastic because people could afford it. And I was really not taking care of myself completely. I was eating a lot of processed foods, but it was happy, organic, expensive, like smiley flowers on the front package, you know, like happy cows. But it was still a lot of seed oils, a lot of processed stuff. And I had always outsourced my nutrients. I really thought that, you know, if you're a career woman like me, you don't have time to cook and you don't have time to be in the kitchen. And that's not something that we're meant to do. And all that changed when I got really, really sick. I had a chronic illness where I was bedbound for weeks, homebound for months, and unable to work for years. And it was then that I woke up and thought, oh my gosh, like I have a choice to make. I either am going to start truly practicing self-care, not just you walk 30 minutes or you do yoga or you drink enough water, but truly practicing listening to my body and getting it balanced, or else I'm going to be useless to the earth, to my fellow citizens, to my family. And I don't want that. And so I made that choice. I started getting healthier and then the pandemic hit, right? And I went to the store and the shelves were empty. I was looking for ginger and garlic, and there was none. This particular store was a health food store that's quite close to my house. And since the pandemic, they've cut the produce section in half and they never put it back. It's it's only packaged food. So it disappeared and it never to come back again. So I came home and I thought, oh my gosh, Chris, what are we going to do? My husband's name is Chris. And I said, we can't get these essential herbs. Ginger and garlic are two of the best herbs in Chinese medicine for issues with lungs. And we were having lung issues going on. I really wanted to be able to help protect my family by maybe fermenting some garlic. And he said, Well, maybe we could start growing our own food. Now we live in the suburbs of Southern California, so there's lots of concrete. My backyard is a pool surrounded by concrete. Like there's nothing grows here or nothing did at the time. And I was like, Have you met me? Do you know what I do to plants? Like right now in my background, you can see, Amanda, that there are plants here. There were no plants in the house. There were no plants outside, aside from I think a snake plant. Like I was really good at killing weeds. And I would often go to the garden store and grab some stuff and then kill it and then go back to the garden store a week later and buy it again. And so that is where my homesteading began because when I started looking up YouTube, I had learned how to learn languages using my computer. And so I realized that YouTube was actually a useful resource. And so when I started using my skills as a language learner to learn how to cook food and how to grow food in my backyard, I kept coming upon this word called homesteading. And I'm like, well, that's not me. That I'm like not Laura Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie, which might be dated at this point. I need to think of a new, like, I need to see it.

SPEAKER_02:

Have you seen? I have seen that. No, it's can can I ask you a question quickly? Approximately how old were you when you had this chronic illness?

SPEAKER_00:

That was not very long ago. That was in my 40s, and it took up most of my 40s. I felt like I woke up and a decade was gone because I had been slowly getting more and more sick and still working. And it was something I'm raised by, as I said, an immigrant family. My dad was a hardworking Vietnam vet. So I had this idea in my mind that you have to sing for your supper. You have to be useful. You have to be productive. And when you're sick, that is the stupidest idea you could possibly have. Like you need to rest. That is being productive. And I remember at one point I was sitting at the table with my husband. So I was well enough to start walking around the house again. And I was crying. I'm like, I just, I, you know, I can't do anything. And he said, Well, sweetie, maybe you just all right. You need a to-do list because I was big on to-do lists. He's like, Here's your to-do list. Eat, sleep, poop. Because in Chinese medicine, it's very important to poop. Like, if you're not pooping, you need to talk to someone. And I was like, eat, sleep, poop. Okay, I can do that. Because I was not, I was when he would go to work, I wouldn't eat because I was just too tired to eat. And so I started making that my my um kind of my three calls to action. And from that rest, like initially I was sleeping so much that it looked like I was getting bed sores on my legs because I just wasn't moving for 12 hours. Eventually I could get up and I could pitter patter around. I knew that for me, staying active in whatever way I could would keep me from depression, you know, just that feeling of nothing's, you know, hopelessness. And so that's when I said, I'm just gonna learn how to make three crock pot meals for our family. And I'm a terrible cook, so I'm only gonna look for recipes that have three steps or lists. I wouldn't call myself a cook, but you know, my repertoire is is pretty fantastic now, and it's real food. And so once I started learning how to do real food, my body started to recover quite quickly, quite miraculously.

SPEAKER_02:

That's amazing. Now you started the homesteading. Did you start this during COVID?

SPEAKER_00:

During COVID, that's right.

SPEAKER_02:

Now, had you ever thought that you would have started something like that?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, you know, I'm a bit unpredictable in terms of what my next new thing is. Like my husband just never knows what's gonna happen. You know, I was a singer-songwriter for a few years in Los Angeles, then I was in real estate, then I went into medical. You know, like there's always something new. Then I decided to learn French and Spanish just because why not learn French and Spanish? And so this was the new thing that was really um, I think the most important reason it came to me was because it was empowering. I was in a place of fear. I didn't like that I didn't know where food was coming from. I didn't like the supply chains were getting disconnected. That all of that was making me really uncomfortable. And this was a way to soothe myself. And then I noticed that I was creating community around that. So when I saw a neighbor that was gardening, I would, you know, I would introduce myself and we talk about gardens. And at that time, everything was so isolating during the very beginning, parts of the pandemic, like no one was talking to anyone outside. And it just felt good to stop and say, Oh my gosh, your flowers are beautiful, or how did you do this? And that was how I learned that if you clip off certain plants, you can grow a whole new plant from certain plants. It's called propagating. You just clip off a stem and suddenly you can grow, you put it in water, it grows some roots, and then voila. And so I had this one woman that I would just go to her house and be like, What can I have from your garden? And she would run around and clip stuff. And then I started knocking on my neighbors' doors and saying, Hey, do you have any plants that I can? And some of them were like, No, what are you talking about? But others were like, Yeah, try this one. And so I was starting to build my garden out of curiosity. And I think curiosity is, I think, one of the best traits that you could possibly have. I think that's one it's one trait that makes a podcaster really successful because when they're curious, then new and exciting ideas come and you can learn so much from someone else. And I think as a human, this curiosity muscle, if you exercise it correctly, you don't strain it too much, but you take good care of it, you can learn so many things. Your world opens up like nobody's business.

SPEAKER_02:

That makes a lot of sense. Now, I want I want to transition to Tad. Now, I heard on a podcast you were on about how you started learning these languages in your 40s. So I'm curious, was that before the chronic illness, after the chronic illness, during the chronic illness?

SPEAKER_00:

I feel so famous because you listen to a podcast of I'm like, oh my goodness. There's there's some podcast out there that someone listened to already. Yes. So I got really lucky because I made a decision. I think I was 39 or 40. I made a decision, I'm gonna learn French for the joy of it. I've always loved languages. All four of my siblings speak another language. Two of them speak Russian, two of them speak Spanish, and I always felt like I was left out. Like I was the one, there's five kids, I'm the youngest of five, and I was the one that did not get any languages. And so I had to catch up. Being the little competitive younger sister, I had to catch up and learn too. And so I remember this was like the 11th time that I tried learning a language. And I was like, I'm gonna do this for joy, just for pure joy. I had been learning languages for work. You know, if I knew how to speak Spanish, then I'd be able to help my patient base more. And there's no one, I mean, there's 1% of the population in my region speaks French. So it's not for professional reasons. I just liked the sound of it, and I liked that I did got really good grades for it in high school. So I was like, all right, this is a good one to start with. And so I found polyglot. Polyglot is someone that speaks many languages, and his name is Benny Lewis from Fluent in Three Months, and he had this blog that said you can learn a language like today. And it doesn't matter how many times you've tried learning before, the most important thing is to speak from day one. And so I started going on his blog and just reading everything, and I was doing it solely for pleasure, and then I got sick. And the secret to my success is that I continued to learn while I was sick, except I never told anyone in the language world at the time that I was ill. So it was kind of like the secret. And I I made it, it was a conscious effort. So I'd have to cancel a lot because I was too sick to talk, like you know, one-on-one with my teachers online. Or um I'd have a chat with another language learner to talk about something and I couldn't make it. And I would tell them like the symptom, like, oh, I have a headache or I'm too tired or whatever, but they never knew that I was ill. And the thing that this did was it created this bubble of health. So in their eyes, I was healthy, whereas all of my loved ones were terribly worried about me. You know, sometimes I they'd come to visit. I remember this one friend coming to visit and I was in bed, and she came to visit, they saw me and just started sobbing. And, you know, she was just feeling her feelings. Like it wasn't, I kind of found it very funny because it seemed like a movie. Like I was not on my deathbed, I was still healing. I just didn't look, I didn't look good. And so to have this one outlet that I could continue to learn even when I was in bed, was magical. It was a magical healing. And so then, as I even got better, Benny's company, Benny Lewis, the fellow I was just telling you about, hired me as a writer. And so this was when I was still homebound, and it was, you know, definitely not a career move. Like bloggers don't make a ton of money, but they're paying me a little bit to write articles about language learning as a beginner. And so that gave me more um like motivation to get well and to keep talking now, but I was still was not talking about how I was in the public arena. And I thought one of the reasons I didn't talk about it is because I really like to come to the public or come to any audience with a solution. And I didn't yet have the solution. So it was like, I'm just gonna hang back. And when I'm out of this, then I'll be able to talk about the changes that have occurred. So language learning started before I got sick. This is a very, very long answer to your insightful question. It started before I got sick and then I held on to it throughout.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow, that's amazing. It's almost like it gave you, and correct me if I'm wrong, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it's almost like it gave you an opportunity not to identify with the illness.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. Absolutely. I think that you know, I've seen patients come into my clinic and they're really sick or even they're partially sick, but when they see me, all they can talk about is their illness. And then I'm like, oh, well, this is because we're in the clinic setting. But then we go outside of the clinic setting and I might see people that are the all they talk about is their illness. And I didn't want to be identified as a sick person. And I didn't want to lie about it, but I also didn't want to have a victim mentality about it. I didn't necessarily feel like I needed to beat this. I'm going to beat this. It wasn't that. It was, I'm going to start listening to my body, and my body is going to figure this out. Like we're going to figure this out. I have a really good team of a family that loves me and supports me. And this body was made to create balance. And I'm going to figure out a way to help that.

SPEAKER_02:

I think that's great. I really think that almost really allowed you the opportunity to not identify with it. You know, I think so many people, whether it's an autoimmune disease, whether it's whatever it is, like even if it's not like victim mentality, it's something you hear them say, like, oh, I have. And it's like one of the first things they'll tell you. And like to each their own, I get it, but it almost becomes part of their identity.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, it absolutely does. And you I'll I'll tell you that you get tired of telling that story. At least I got very tired of telling the sixth story to everyone every time they talk to me. And there wasn't much else going on. So I would implore those that are ill, that are in bed, you know, you don't have to do language learning. Like that might not be what your thing is. Maybe homesteading's not your thing, but find something that gives you a little tiny bit of joy and use that during your well moments. And your well moments will continue to grow from that. I really believe that if we uplift the spirit, the body follows.

SPEAKER_02:

I like that. If we uplift the spirit, the body follows. Now I'm curious, when did you start writing the book in terms of all of this?

SPEAKER_00:

That's a great question. I actually wrote another book that I have not yet published because it's a completely different theme. It's also a nonfiction, and I didn't want it to be my first book. So that book took me eight years to write. And then the editing process came and scared the Jesus out of me, and I decided to hold off on that. This book, I think I wrote it in about six months to a year, but I sat down and wrote it every morning for an hour and was able to work through the manuscript that way. And I think that the rough draft was done in four months of just one hour a day. Because I had a lot to say. I already, once I got the outline done, I knew what I was going to do. And so that happened probably, oh, I don't know, 2023, I think. A lot of people wanted me to write a language learning book. And I was like, I don't know. I think that the homesteading, there's more of a need for people to connect to traditional skills, and you can do it in a joyful way. And I could talk about habit creation, uh, creating routines for success. I could talk about that in a way that could ignite people because I found that in homesteading, what you get is a lot of really knowledgeable people that give you a lot of recipes for success in terms of this is how you build a chicken coop and this is how you, you know, make sourdough. But there was no one saying, but how do you make those life changes? Like, how do you go from someone that's I had no idea what broccoli looked like coming out of the ground? I had no like onions, everything just absolutely amazed me. How do you go from killing everything in your backyard to putting something in and creating it? How do you do that when you're still when you still got a completely busy life? And I feel like a lot of people are stuck in mud, the mud of daily life. And so they've accidentally created these routines that are soul sucking and they don't know how to pull themselves out of that. And I would say you do it in tiny little increments. And that's what that's why I wrote this book.

SPEAKER_02:

Tiny little increments. Can you give us an example?

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. I would say that for someone that's learning holistic health in the household, because there are many spokes to homesteading. So it's not just growing food, it's not just cooking food or fermenting food. It could also be creating an inside pharmacy, right? So that sounds insane, right? Oh my gosh, how am I going to create a pharmacy in my house? Like that's nuts. Well, you already have a pharmacy. You probably have aspirin, ibuprofen, maybe some cough medicine. You have a pharmacy, but if you wanted to do a holistic pharmacy, where would you start? I would start with just one five-minute habit. And so that five-minute habit might be the first five minutes, I'm going to go into podcasting and I'm going to look up everything about castor oil. I'm going to look for every episode on castor oil that exists or every audio book on castor oil that exists. And then I'm going to put them in my playlist. And then every time that I commute to work, just for five minutes, before I put up my fantastic, you know, get to work music or my favorite radio show or whatever you typically listen to on your commute, just for five minutes, I'm going to listen to a podcast about castor oil and what it does for your body. And I'm just going to let it kind of, we talk about in language learning, intensive learning and extensive learning. Intensive learning is when you're like studying with flashcards and you're trying to recall it. And extensive is like when you're just letting stuff wash over you. And so I say start your first five minutes with just letting stuff wash over you. So you've got your podcast, you're learning about castor oil, and then you learn that castor oil reduces pain, right? And so you've learned that and you're like, huh, maybe I'll experiment with castor oil and see if I can reduce some pain. So then you put it on a sprained ankle and you do it according to what the podcast says. And then you start experimenting. Again, five minute, just a five-minute exercise. And from that, you can slowly build on your successes. A lot of times you'll end up listening to the podcast. If it's a good podcast like yours, you'll listen to the entire episode. Even though you started with five, you end up listening to, you know, all 60 minutes. But you always give yourself permission. If this is not interesting, I only do five minutes. And you can do this. That's what I just explained was a version of habit stacking. And so James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, talks about this where you take a habit that already exists. Because remember, I said we're stuck in the mud of our daily habits that are not fulfilling us, right? Maybe it's um, maybe it's the commute. You hate the commute. Well, you can actually create something viable from that commute. Or let's say you just go home and you're exhausted when you get home. And the first thing you do, you're like, I'm gonna make dinner, but first I'm just gonna have some chips and I'm gonna sit on the couch with my legs up because my feet really hurt. And then what happens is you end up eating chips out of the bag and that's your dinner, and now you've binge watched whatever the new show is, you know, four episodes in, you go to sleep tired, you go to sleep too late, you wake up tired and it starts all over again. That's being stuck in the mud of the habit. But what if you tell yourself, I'm gonna have those chips? But first, right before I do the chips and the binge watch, I'm going to do five minutes of making an herbal infusion. I'm gonna get some herbs that I bought at the farmer's market, I'm gonna throw them in some water and I'm gonna let them sit. And now you're getting some nutrient benefits plus some great like fancy spa water. What if I do that and then I go sit on the couch and put my feet up? You'll have this sense of accomplishment and you will be pulling yourself out of that quicksand of those habits that don't work. Then you do the habit that you wanted to do. Go for it, go watch the show. And then each day, that's called habit chaining, where you chain another habit to a habit that already exists. And so, in these ways, you can change your life. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02:

Habit chaining. That makes a lot of sense. I'm curious on your thoughts on willpower and if you think that can help creating change.

SPEAKER_00:

I think willpower is finite, and that means that it's got a beginning, middle, and end. There have been studies about willpower that it lessens as the more you use it. For example, there was a book called The Power of Habit by Charles Dewig, which I really like as well. Good book. Lots of good stories in it. In it, there were kids that were told by the experimenters, like, okay, don't eat the cookies. And then some of the kids got to do something fun while they were not eating the cookies, but the cookies are right next to them. And the other kids got to do some sort of mental experiment that was taxing. And the ones that had the taxing experiment, when they were allowed to eat the cookies, ate more cookies. It might have even been adults, it might not have been children. But the short and the long of the story is the harder they had to work at like focusing on something that wasn't that fun, which takes willpower, then they didn't have willpower for the cookies afterwards. Like it was finite. Whereas a routine, which is what I love, like a lot of people talk about discipline, but I talk about routines, is that it's happening beyond the decision-making part of your brain. So the very front of your brain, the frontal cortex that everyone talks about, that is the part of your brain that kind of decides whether something is a stick or a snake when you're walking in the woods, right? Am I going to be scared? Am I not going to be scared? Or do I really want to go take that walk? Or can I just, you know, can I just take today off because it's a little hot out or whatever? That's prefrontal cortex. But the routine part of your brain actually is around the long-term memory part of your brain. And the way that this was found out was there was this guy that had, I believe, meningitis. It's a terrible brain viral, a brain virus, and it ate up parts of his brain, but it didn't eat the amygdala, which is down near the um, down near the brain stem. And what they noticed is this guy could, if you said, Hey, how are you doing? He could have like full-on small talk with you. But then if you said, Hey, by the way, how do you get to your kitchen? And he's sitting in his living room, he couldn't tell you how to get there because his prefrontal cortex was no longer working, but his routine part of his brain was working. So he would sometimes wander out the house without his wife, and his wife would freak out and he would come back. And so they started following him, like, what is happening? And it turns out he knew the map of his neighborhood, so he could always get home. But if you asked him how to get home, he could not tell you. So he was in the routine part. And then the researchers that were doing this was like, well, what if we create routines and then we don't have to think about whether we should or shouldn't? And that that does happen. I mean, think about even for you, Amanda, when you're podcasting, right? You either you have a list or you automatically put your headphones on, you got your microphone. You've got a routine that happens as you're getting ready. And after many, many episodes, it's not something that you have to think about as much as the first episode, right? The first episode, it's like, I got to make sure everything's in place. Now, when I set up my very warm studio, that bright light that I have is very warm. When I set that up, I get about 90% of everything done. And then I check my list and I'm like, okay, and I've got to get this and this. But it's become this routine. It's something that I can do other things while I'm doing it. Whereas when I was first doing that new action, it took a lot of my willpower and my concentration. Once I get into routine, there's not a lot of willpower needed. Now it is easy to pop out of habits, but then you can learn how to retrain your mind to go back into those habits.

SPEAKER_02:

Do you have any tips for people to retrain their mind if they have gotten out of a habit that they want to get back into?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, there's a number of tips, but I'll give you two of my favorites. The first is the five-minute rule. And we touched on it just a second ago, but when you're out of a habit, a lot of times we'll start by, and this is just me, I think that probably at least half of your audience will also feel this way. You have a good habit, you've gone away, or you got really busy and it wasn't working, and now you're out of it. And there's a bit of shame that comes with it. Like, oh, I used to do this. I was so good at this. Why don't I do this anymore? So the five-minute rule can help kind of get you back on track without the self-castigation. And what you do is, okay, I'm just gonna do this one thing for five minutes. I'm gonna give myself five minutes to do my old habit. And let's say you used to go out and water your garden and it took an hour to water your garden, which please don't, you don't really need to water your garden for an hour. If you go online and get a soaker hose and a timer, it will water it for you and it's gonna save you water. So for 50 bucks, it'll be the best thing that you've ever done. But let's say that you haven't heard this podcast yet and you're out there watering your garden for an hour, and now you haven't watered it for months because you've just been out of practice and everything's starting to wilt. You're just kind of you're going along and you have this sense of like, I gotta go out there, I've got to clean it up. But it's, you know, it looks, I can't even face it. If you just say, I'm just gonna, all I'm gonna do is go out, I'm gonna set a timer for five minutes, and maybe that means I go out, turn on the water, and get to one plant, and then the timer goes off, you put down the hose and go back in, and then you do some sort of celebration. So a lot of times we talk about Q routine reward. And the cue is when you start feeling like I'm not, I'm not feeling that good, you see that you put out maybe the hose where you can see it so that you see, oh my gosh, that hose. So a lot of times I'll water a patch of my garden that doesn't have a soaker hose right after the my dog, I walk my dog. So I'll walk my dog, my husband and I'll go into the house and I'll be like, Oh, I'll be right in. And then I'll just quickly turn on the hose because the hose is right there in plain sight where I can see it. And that will get me back into a routine. The second thing that you can do when you're trying to get back into routine is consider function stacking. So start looking at things for the functions that they have. In permaculture, we talk a lot about this with plants. For example, we'll do plant families together, and plant families don't have to be from the same species. My sweet potato vine will give a ground cover to my garden if I'm not working in that area. It's keeping the soil protected from the hot sun. The leaves are edible on sweet potatoes, and then the potatoes are edible. Also, they have pretty flowers, so I could use the flowers in a salad or something. So I've got four functions just for having that one plant. That's stacking functions. Well, in terms of recreating a routine that you were what you've lost, you want to think about what the function stacking, the function stacking is of these things. So, for example, for the watering example, right? You are getting sunlight therapy. You're probably, if you're smart, you've got your bare feet in the grass or on the dirt where you're watering. Then you get the reward of seeing that you're taking care of a garden. And then maybe at the end you give yourself a second reward by doing like an herbal infusion. You take some, you clip off some of your herbs and put it in water for easy hydration. And so this will help create this Q-routine reward reaction where you're actually getting reward for it. The other thing that I want to say is you also want to focus on gratitude, which I think we can talk about more if you want. But if you have another question, I'm happy to go there too.

SPEAKER_02:

I'd love to hear what you want to say on that. Oh, I think that's a very big thing is being thankful for whatever it is, even the small things that we have. But I'm curious how you think that's gonna help or how it could help the routine.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I think that as I said before, if you've got shame or negative self-talk, which is stopping you from getting back into that routine, you know, you used to run five miles and now you don't run at all. And you just you can't, every time you see your running shoes, you're saying something bad about yourself. One of the ways to kind of shift your perspective is to focus on gratitude. So a lot of really smart, innovative people have a gratitude practice. My gratitude practice, so all right, there's a little plug for me. I will say that at times I'm smart and innovative, but my gratitude routine is when I first wake up in the morning and I really focus on being present with what I have in this moment. And quite honestly, if someone is listening to this on a podcast, there's a good chance that they have a cell phone or a laptop. And if they can't afford a cell phone or a laptop and they're in the library listening to this on a free laptop, they have a library. Like they have a library that they have access to. So there's always something to be grateful for. For me, I really make a point of looking at all the things that I could easily take for granted that exist every single day. Like running water is really amazing. Warm running water. The fact that I can, when I have a million dishes from doing a lot of cooking, I can have water that feels good on my hands and that can help me to be more mindful and present as opposed to freezing cold water or super hot burning water. Like I've got water that I can make absolutely perfect for me. That is an incredible thing to be grateful for. There's another friend and author, Honore Corter, that used to talk about her meditation practice in terms of gratitude, that when she's really feeling like she's needing gratitude in a strong way, like she's feeling the feelings, she will go around and touch things, like physically touch things in her house. Like, I am grateful for this kitchen table. I'm grateful for this toaster oven. I'm grateful for my fluffy dog. And it's, I think that's great because it's using a different sense to kind of really help you stay present in this moment. Okay, so I have a question for you, Minda. If you're up for answering it, do you have a gratitude practice or have you thought about having one?

SPEAKER_02:

I do. So I and I kind of changed, I did change it. I think it was around COVID time that I adjusted it. And it wasn't me that came up with this, but a woman named Rachel Hollis mentioned the idea of people who struggle with even the routine of the gratitude practice. Something bringing to mind something that you are grateful for within the last 24 hours. Because sometimes it's easy for like the big things. I'm grateful for my family. I'm grateful for my home. In the midst of the really hard seasons, sometimes that's like, oh no shit. I'm grateful for that. Like, that's a big thing. But it almost forces me each day to be like, wow, because tomorrow I'm gonna write down five things within the last 24 hours that I'm grateful for. And it's like, I'm really grateful for that on my walk today. I heard this couple arguing, and they stopped arguing when they saw me because then the husband was like, Stop arguing in front of this young lady. And I was like, You guys don't need to argue, life's too short. Not that it's really my business to be telling this random couple that like life's too short. And then they stopped arguing. So, like, that's something I'm gonna put on my gratitude list. As as random and silly as it is, it's like almost like training my mind to where it's like years ago, I would have been like, oh, this stupid couple is arguing. Even years ago, like COVID time, I would have been like, what the heck? And now I'm like, dang, you know what? He said to her, Stop yelling at me in front of this young woman. And she did. She's like, You're right, I'm sorry. And they stopped. Not that I'm like, I probably didn't fix all the issues, but I was like, wow, so like yeah, that's that's how the gratitude practice that I have now.

SPEAKER_00:

I love it. I love because it's getting you to look for those five things, right? You're in the practice of looking. There's a I'm sure you've seen those pictures where it's the vase or the faces. You know, they do it, you know, you can see a woman, an old woman, or you can see a young ballerina, that kind of thing. If you keep looking, a lot of people be like, oh, I can see both at the same time. You actually cannot. The brain can only cannot multitask. So what's happening is you're going back and forth really fast. Vase, face, vase, face. And what that tells me is if we focus on the solution, the solution increases. If we focus on the problem, the problem increases. And what you are looking for in those five, you're actively looking for five good things. You're focusing on the solution. My husband and I were in a very crowded place Tuesday, and we were in line and we were looking around, and it's very boring, and we're gonna be in line for a long time. And he's like, let's do a game. And I'm like, all right, what do you want to do? He's like, let's see how many people are smiling right now. Because we were in a supposedly happy place, you know, a place where people should be smiling. We're like, all right, let's live for smiles. And like most people are tired. It's hot in Southern California, the sun's beating down. So it was quite a game. But after a time, we've realized that a lot of times when people would catch our eyes, they'd start smiling. And it was because he and I had these big, gigantic, goofy grins on our face, looking for we were like, are you gonna smile? Like we weren't trying to capture them, but we were creating more smiles, and it was hilarious because we were looking for smiles. We were then get we were anticipating that people were going to be smiling. It was like we were looking for the goodness, even though it was a silly game.

SPEAKER_02:

That's so cute. I love that looking for the goodness. And I love how you mentioned if you're focused on the solution versus if you're focused on the problem. That's with everything. You get more of what you are focused on, what you are thinking about.

SPEAKER_00:

And I do want to say, as someone that has a history of depression, I'm sure that people that are listening that aren't feeling that well are like, you gotta be kidding me. And I can say that I do tend to reframe even depression. Now that my gut microbiome is much healthier, I don't have mood swings and I don't have lower mood states as often. But it used to be really, really bad because the processed food and the sugar and just my chemical makeup of my brain wasn't quite well. But I remember renaming it and I was like, okay, I'm not gonna call it depression. Today it's a mind cold. I just have a mind cold. And then I would do contrary action. I'm just gonna call a friend and tell them I have a mind cold and then I'm gonna go walk. Because usually within 15 minutes, if you're well enough to walk, you will feel a little better. And I usually did. And so I would just do one little thing, or I would, you know, if I was not well enough to walk, I would just be like, what do I have to feel grateful for right now? It doesn't mean I'm gonna feel better. I'm not trying to take away the lower mind state. I'm just trying to get into what we've both been talking about, which is just focusing on the solution. And so someone once told me that the prescription to hopelessness is gratitude. And for me, depression had a lot to do with like feelings of hopelessness. And so if I can just have gratitude, even in a lower mind state, even during a mind cold, um, then eventually it can pass. And let me tell you, even in my 50s, when there's a lower mind state, I believe that it's never going to end. Like most people that are feeling those things feel it's never going to end, even though for many, many years it has ended. And I've had incredible long spans of healthy mental states. When you're in it, it might feel like it's never going to end. And I promise you it will. And one of the best things that you can do is just little tiny droplets of gratitude. You don't have to bombard yourself, like just the five things in a day. That's a great, easy practice.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And you know, she was going through a hard season at the time of Rachel Holly. She lost her kid's father. And even little small things. If you're going for a walk, the pretty flowers that you see, like random little things. Even if you can't get yourself to get out of bed, like maybe you got a really nice text message from one of your friends. It could be something minuscule. And I think a lot of people focus on like the big things, but sometimes in those harder seasons, it's like, well, obviously that's a good thing. That's a thing I'm grateful for. And your mind's almost like, so what? And you know, you know what I mean? Not like you're not grateful for your family, but it's like obviously I'm grateful for that. And when you're in that hopelessness state, it it's harder to focus on it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you need to look for the surprising new things. The brain loves in language learning. I did a lot of reading about neuroscience in language learning, and it's one thing that stuck with me was the brain loves novelty and routine. And that sounds like an oxymoron, like you can't love both, but it's true. And so what you're talking about is the routine is would be the five, the five things that you're grateful for. You're just looking for that every day, even if you're feeling in it like crap, even if you feel really terrible. And then the novelty is you're looking for new stuff. Don't go into the routine part of the brain that I talked about earlier, which is yeah, I'm happy for my family, I'm happy for my dog, I'm happy for my career, I'm happy for this house. And like you just say the same five things. It's kind of like saying a prayer, which I think prayers, prayers are very powerful, even ones that are recited, but you need to slow down and really hear what you're saying. And so I think when you're looking for five things that you're grateful for, even teeny tiny ones, like a text message from a friend, not everybody is getting that every day. That is quite a remarkable thing. Sometimes if it's just my husband or someone I love will just say something kind to me. And I'm like, oh, that felt really good. And I'll just accept and receive that goodness. And sometimes when we're in those lower mind states, it's like our we've got this shell of in Chinese medicine, it would be cold, it would be water. It's got this shell of ice that's around us that needs a few little cracks. And I think gratitude absolutely can bring those cracks into your life, those good cracks.

SPEAKER_02:

I really like how you refer to depression as a mind cold. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I just thought that it needed a new name because depression had been used, you know. I think my first depression was when I was nine, and it had been used like such a heavy blanket, something that you couldn't get out of, you know, like a really heavy blanket that's just holding you down. And so I wanted to acknowledge it. I don't think that it's healthy to walk around and be like, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm happy, I'm fine, let me just have more coffee. Like, no, like it's okay to have those states and to share them with people that are safe. Like, I don't walk go to cocktail hours during a mind cold and be like, hey, I have a mind cold, let me tell you about it. But then just taking the word, I believe that words have a lot of power. And so you have to be careful how you use them. And so if there's a word that's not working for you anymore, change it. Change it for a little while and see if there's a different energy around that word or that that idea.

SPEAKER_02:

I think that is so true. You know, even like we talked about the chronic illness of our words, I really believe are like wands. Like what we say, and even what we think, even if we don't say it out loud, or even if we don't say it out loud to anybody else, it affects us. It affects how we show up, it affects how our body reacts. I just truly believe that. I really do.

SPEAKER_00:

I do too. And I think when you figure out that key, in whatever way it that it like comes to you, like I was inspired to start calling it a mind cold. No one told me you need to rename this. I just felt like it's too heavy. It needs something different. You will try it with just one word. Maybe it's divorce, or maybe it's heartache, or maybe it's a breakup, or maybe it's failure, whatever that word is. Maybe you got fired from your job and like you have a lot of shame around it. Maybe you can just start saying, I was released from that job. Like every time you're talking about it to yourself, I was released from that job. Or in terms of any of those words that are really, really heavy that just can you can feel it in your heart, try renaming it and then start looking for the little bits of goodness, just like you were saying. I really think that I might try the five gratitudes in 24 hours. I really like that. I really do.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so even when the mind cold is showing up extra heavy, like, yeah, you're grateful for your husband. Yeah, you're grateful for like your plant, you're grateful for these things, but in the midst, you might be like, Of course I am, you know, but like the little thing, like, wow, I'm really grateful that it was super sunny today. Because some days it's it's not, you know, I'm grateful for there was a breeze because like it's it's warm in California, you know, like whatever that little thing is, and it's like your mind shifts, and you're like, wow, I didn't normally think about that. It almost even forces you to be more present.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. Yes. I think anytime that you're present, and a lot of meditation teachers will tell you this and self-help gurus, anytime you're present, you cannot be in the anxiety or the depression. Because depression a lot of times is either looking towards the future and saying it's never gonna get better, or looking at the past and saying, look at what's happened to me. And anxiety is the same. Anxiety is I'm not prepared for the future, or what if something happens like what happened in the past? Whereas present-mindedness, a lot of my patients that have post-traumatic stress disorder, every once in a while, they will have some sort of panic attack on the table. And one of the best ways that I can help them get out of it is just going back to the senses. I'll say stuff like, Can you see my nose? And then they'll look at my nose and I'll be like, Can you hear my voice right now? And then I'll say, What else can you hear? And they start to slow down and they're like, I can hear the other guy snoring in the other room and we both start giggling, and it just can get them back to the present moment. And another time I will say, like, look around the room and notice if you're safe or not. Like, notice if there's any danger right now. Is there a tiger in this room? Because your body is reacting like there is. Is there? Can you shut the door and feel more safe? Can you feel more connected? Can you put on something cozy that's gonna make you feel warm or can you ask a friend to hug you? Like all of these things are gonna help your nervous system get more in the present moment.

SPEAKER_02:

I love that you tap into the senses. What type of work do you do with your clients?

SPEAKER_00:

I'm an acupuncturist by trade, and I'm working on doing needle-free acupuncture online. So I've done a few sessions of that. And also I'm creating an online course. It'll actually be a series of four courses for how to heal your gut microbiome because I think that so much of what happens in the body happens in the gut. So I am currently creating a course on how to ferment kefir, but it's not just how to ferment kefir, it's also how to create habits around making kefir in your house and what are the medical benefits? Because I felt like I couldn't find that all in one place. And so I'm creating it for my patients.

SPEAKER_02:

I love that. Now I'm curious. When you were growing up, I'm going back a little bit. Did you ever think you'd get into something like acupuncture or medicine like this?

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely not. I, first of all, I was not raised in a family that was big on anything alternative. Like we had lots of, I was a latchkey kid, my parents worked a lot, and we just believed what the doctors told us. So we did a lot of whatever the doc was telling us that's what we would do. And I um I'd never thought that I had a science mind. It turns out I do. I just love, I love learning about the body. And I love having friends that I can ask. I have a biologist friend that I can call up and ask questions about the mitochondria. And so all of those things I just never thought, I never thought about them. I knew that I wanted to do something to help people. I've always wanted to help people. And this was a really good path for me. And I also love to teach, which I think is why I wrote the book. It's why I'm making the courses because I really love when something that I learn is remarkably inspiring to me, like it's changed my life. The number one thing I want to do is teach others. Like you have no idea how many times my kefir grains have um multiplied. I think I'm gonna sneeze here. Offense. My grandmother says if you sneeze while you're saying something, it's true. So I guess I really do share my kefir grains. So you have no idea how many times my friends have come over to learn how to do kefir. And I just kept teaching people, teaching people because people want to know, but they think it's so difficult. And it's absolutely not. And so I just love I love teaching it's I love empowering people the way that I've accidentally been empowered.

SPEAKER_02:

Now I'm curious. So since you love teaching, is writing a book something you always thought you'd do, always planned?

SPEAKER_00:

Uh no. Well, I think in my teens, my sister paid for some palm reader, and they said I was gonna have two careers and one was gonna be a writer. And I remember thinking, like, that's silly. I don't write, but it turns out I've been a writer my whole life. Like I was always into journal writing. I always did well in writing, and then I became a writer for a few self-help nonprofits, just you know, articles that I would write, and then I became a writer for language learning. And so it's so funny because I never thought of myself as a writer, but then I look back and I'm like, oh my gosh, I've been writing since I was like 12, and then, you know, professionally for many, many years. So I don't think that I knew I had a book in me until I started writing the first book. And now I can't see me not writing more books. And especially I'm an avid reader. So I think you do what you love, and I just love reading. I love learning new things, and I also love teaching it. So writing is the best. I mean, I know everybody's doing audiobooks now, but uh, I actually am a paper and pen kind of guy. I like to have a book and I like to write in the margins and highlight like that. That floats my boat. So hopefully there are still some people out there that also like to do that.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm a pen and paper kind of gal. I have Audible, but I much more prefer the physical book. But honestly, I just have only so much space. Yeah, but like I more than prefer that because I want to take notes in there, I want to highlight certain things with my little sticky notes. Like I relate to that. But oh my gosh, wow, a palm we do had said that to your sister. Yeah, isn't that silly? That's so fascinating to me. Yeah, oh my god.

SPEAKER_00:

And I remember being like, okay.

SPEAKER_02:

About how old were you?

SPEAKER_00:

Approximately I was in my teens. My sister's 10 years older than me. Maybe I was 15 or 16. So you were pretty young. I was young. I mean, I was writing at the time, which is really strange. Like, I journals were my first form of therapy. It was my first form of reconnecting with the present moment and helping myself through stuff. So I but I just didn't consider that writing. I just considered that journaling. And writing always came easily to me, and I was drawn to it in college. Um, but I never considered it. Yeah, isn't that strange?

SPEAKER_02:

Oh wow. It it's I feel like that's synchronistic.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know. Yeah. No, it's she got the right answer because became a writer. I mean, it's it's kind of crazy, but no, it wasn't in my it wasn't my I was a singer at the time when I was 16. I was a singer. And it's funny because as a singer and in theater, I remember there was a time in my 20s where I'm like, I am done with other people putting words in my mouth. Like, I'm gonna write my own songs. So then I wrote songs. I taught myself guitar and I wrote songs for a couple of years in LA, and then I decided like that's not really the industry that I want to go into. And so I was writing in other ways, but not, I just didn't put it together that I was a writer.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow, you were writing your own songs. Oh yeah. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00:

This was before YouTube, so I went to the like I said, I just it I'm a bit unpredictable. And I was like, I'm I was a singer for a long time in college and used to pay for a lot of my college through singing gigs, and I would constantly have musicians come back me up at shows, but they would be drunk or they weren't the most punctual, and so it was freaking me out. I'm like, that's it. When I got to California, I'm like, I'm gonna learn an instrument so that I can back myself up so that I know that I won't be drunk and I won't be late. And so I played guitar quite badly, but enough to I just got a book of chords and I just started teaching myself the chords, and then I wrote songs based on those chords. Yeah, it's fun. The brain can do some amazing things with just a little bit of just a little bit of routine, just a little bit of a habit. I would do that before I went to work every day. I was working for a corporation at the time, and I believe that it kept me sane because corporations weren't really the best thing for my spirit.

SPEAKER_02:

So but you built it into the routine of before you went.

SPEAKER_00:

That's right. That's amazing. Yeah, it wasn't amazing for my neighbors. There was one really grumpy guy that did not like me belting out a song at seven in the morning. I was in Ventura, but then I was also in LA. In LA, I had these like slats for windows because there's like no rain. There's no, it's it's very warm here. So there was no soundproof. This poor guy. He was like 45 or something. He probably worked night shift. He would come up, knock on my door, and be like, Can you please stop singing so loudly? And I'm like, Oh, sorry about that. Just joke.

SPEAKER_02:

And he would come ask you to sing quieter.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh yeah, he was so angry. And I remember one time I finally like he lived directly below me, and I finally went down. And my neighbors used to call him Slugworth because he looked exactly like the Willy Wonka bad guy, Slugworth, from the 19, and he did. He really, and he was grumpy and he didn't like us, and we were all artists on that on that floor. One time I did go down, I'm like, hey, I'm really sorry. I'll try not to use my acoustic, I'll use my electric and just play really softly. And he he was like, All right. But he was not happy with my routine. It's not like, oh yay, good for her. Learning a guitar. He was like, Lady better, shut up. It is 7 a.m. Freaking up, poor guy, poor slugworth.

SPEAKER_02:

He doesn't even know that it's hilarious. Oh my gosh. I want to transition a tad back to your book. You have a quote in the book called that you said badly done is better than well said. Can you elaborate on that?

SPEAKER_00:

Sure. So it's a spin off of Ben Franklin quote, which is well done is better than well said. And I was like, well, that just sounds like a perfectionist in the making. And I am a recovering perfectionist. I'm the queen of doing things messy and learning and being like when I speak French or Spanish. The other day I bumped into someone. I went to Irvine Improv, which is in Southern California, to see a show. And beforehand, I was sitting with a mom and some kids, and they were speaking the Spanish that sounded Italian. I promise I'll get to the answer. I promise. But the woman said, you know, she was like, Oh my gosh, your Spanish is so good. And we were talking. She's from the Dominican Republic, which is a very difficult accent for me to understand. And so her 11-year-old son was talking to me too. And I'm like, Yeah, well, I was taught by a Mexican teacher, so I probably have a Mexican accent. He's like, No, you sound like a gringo. And he said it in Spanish, which was hilarious. And so I say this because like people will say, like, oh, can you teach me a language? And I'm like, not if you don't want to sound like a white girl from Southern California speaking French and Spanish, because that is what you're going to get from me. I love that I do things badly. Done. Like badly done will still. I had an entire conversation with this woman, and she was very kind to say that you know my Spanish sounded so good. But it was mostly because I can speak and I can, you know, I can articulate my thoughts and I might mess up some tenses here and there. But I'm a really cute foreign chick when I speak a different language. And I'm okay with that because badly done is better than well said. If I had a quarter for every time someone says to me, Oh my gosh, I've always wanted to learn a language. But if I had that quarter, I would be a billionaire. And so which is cooler, Amanda? Is it cooler to be like, oh wow, you speak French? And I'm like, yeah, badly, but I speak French fantastic. You know, I think it's fantastic. That's way cooler than, oh, I've always wanted to learn French. Where's the story there? There's no story there. There's no experience and no adventure. You don't get it. If you don't speak the language, you don't get invited to people's houses to look through their photo albums. Like I've been invited to senior citizens in France to their house, and I've had to translate for my husband. And, you know, my teachers would be like, oh, you got to work on that accent or you got to get those tenses right. But they didn't care. Like we had an incredible evening. So badly done is always better than well said. It is my battle cry. And I hope that it can be a battle cry for all those that are listening. Let's say you want to learn how to start doing some sort of art, or you've always wanted to learn how to tango. Well, you're gonna stink initially. You're just no one is a natural tank, like amazing tango person. You have to learn. You have to step on some toes, you have to look kind of corny. And then once you start learning how to do it badly done, it's way better than well said. Then eventually you can be proficient at something.

SPEAKER_02:

Do you think that is true for everything about being badly done is better than well said?

SPEAKER_00:

Um no, I think that if you're skydiving, you should not do that badly. That is not anything that can cause bodily injury. Like, please do not be like Elizabeth said, badly done. Just see if this is the parachute cord, but it could also be meat the thing that tightens my belt. We'll see. Like, no, there are definitely limits to that. But there's but there's not a lot aside from parachuting and a few other things that I can think of. I think the most important thing is to go out there and try. Like, go out there and make a fool of yourself. Because let me tell you, the people that are willing to risk being made fools of looking like idiots, I think are some of the bravest, most interesting people there are. Like I've seen people that tell me that they paint, and I see what they paint, and I'm like, whoa, okay. You are definitely badly done is better than what said. But does that mean that I think less of them? Absolutely not. Like my esteem of them has raised just because they went in and they painted that scary clown picture like it was the best picture they could ever paint. And if they're happy, what does it matter, right? Just please don't jump out of the don't skydive.

SPEAKER_04:

Skydive that way.

SPEAKER_02:

That's fair. And I agree with that. Badly done is better than well said. You know, and I think that's so true about so many people wanting to do whether it's learning a language, practicing an instrument. Like I recently got certified in sound healing, and so many people are like, even myself, I'm like, I wish I could play this. And then even the instructor is like, okay, well, you can't, yeah, but you gotta like just start swinging some chords. I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna start swinging some chords because otherwise I'm just here talking about how I can't do it. You know, one of the guys who was like a professional musician and his day job was like, you know, it sounding bad is better than not sounding like anything. And I'm like, is that true?

SPEAKER_00:

I but you know, unless you're Slugworth that lives below me at 7 a.m. Like, that's the only time that I don't think Slugworth would approve of our conversation, right? He'd be like, fat girl, get me up. But but other than Slugworth, no, it's there are times when I walk by a house and I'll hear someone you know drumming for the first time or playing guitar for the first time, and it gives me nothing but sheer joy because they're alive, they're awake. Anytime that you are creating, you are more alive than you are when you're consuming. And it's okay to consume. I consume a lot of podcasts and books, and I I absolutely love to consume, but creation is the spice of life, like that is what will wake you up. What instrument are you thinking about learning? Sitar. I want to learn ukulele.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and it's easier for me to hold than the guitar. I'm a pretty small person, so it's easier and it's kind of cute looking.

SPEAKER_00:

Adorable.

SPEAKER_02:

That's the plan.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, that's so cool. I can't wait to see one of your Instagram posts where you're like doing ding, ding, dong, dong. I will be applauding you because I just started following you, so I will be applauding you.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you. Now I'm curious, and I'm sure you've had quite a few, but the biggest aha moment you've had in your life.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, there's a lot of aha moments, but since we were talking about chronic health, chronic illness, I will say that my biggest aha moment was that if I don't take care of this body, I will not be able to be of service to the people that I love. And so that meant like extreme self-care because I used to think that self-care was something that I put on my to-do list, but it's like number 10 of, you know, I've got 10 things to do today. And number 10 is I should do something good for myself. The self-care that I do now has a really good balance of good for you and stuff that makes you feel good after, like taking a walk is good for you. It makes you feel good after, but it's not always really fun in. And then I have things that make me feel good in that moment. So frivolous joy is something that I've really been focusing on because I I really I just forgot that frivolous joy was so amazing for the nervous system. Like laughing out loud, like this us laughing feels so good to my body, right? And so, one of the ways that I do frivolous joy, this is gonna sound really simple, but it's it's a true, easy way to do it. It takes maybe 30 seconds to a minute, is I used to make veggie juice in the morning. It's part of the gaps protocol, which is what I'm doing to heal my gut. And so I'd make the veggie juice and then I would drink it, and then I would continue doing my chores for the morning. And I started going, you know what? I really would like to sit down and pet my dog while I drink my juice. And so that's this 30-second joy. And like he loves it. He's like, All right, it's juice time, because that's his voice. That's his that's his pretend dog voice. It's juice time, let's go. And so he loves getting a little belly rub while I'm sitting down and just resetting my nervous system to start the day. And it's those little bits of joy. I love stand-up comedy, so I like watching videos of it or like funny cat videos. Just five minutes, just a little something to spark joy or go. I love museums, so that's a bigger sparking joy. But these things that I used to think were frivolous and unnecessary, now I realize are essential to my health.

SPEAKER_02:

I love that. Frivolous joy. And I feel like that probably brings you back more into the present moment if you're ever not in it as absolutely asking yourself, what do I want at this moment?

SPEAKER_00:

I think that we tend to think that we're outsourcing our happiness, right? A movie or a TV show, or our partner or our friend is supposed to anticipate and surprise us and delight us. What if we started surprising and delighting ourselves? What if we were radiating happiness? Can you imagine how much more joy and happiness would be attracted to us? Like this idea of just like, you know, turning us on like a light bulb and just doing things that what do I want? What do I really want today? Is it like I didn't know it, but I absolutely love watching bumblebees on plants. I think that's so much fun. Those little things are so busy. And I would have never known that if I weren't looking for little tiny ways to have present-minded joy in my day.

SPEAKER_02:

I love that. That's a great aha. I understand why that's your biggest aha moment. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Elizabeth. I've loved this conversation.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, I had so much fun with you, Amanda. You are a delight to be chatting with.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, thank you. So are you. Now, have you heard of a man named Jay Shetty?

SPEAKER_00:

No.

SPEAKER_02:

So I'm a big fan of his. It's not a problem that you haven't heard of him, but he's got a podcast called On Purpose. He's an author, motivational speaker, former monk, but he ends his podcast with two segments, and I've stolen the two segments, and I just give him credit because I think I'm supposed to. Also, the first segment is the many sides to us. There's five questions, and they need to be answered in one word each. Okay. What is one word someone who was meeting you for the first time would used to describe you as?

SPEAKER_00:

Perhaps engaging. Now you say perhaps engaging. Because, well, I'd love to know what you thought of when you first met me. Um, but because there are times when I'm really introverted, so I won't be that engaging when they first meet me. Like be very quiet. Like it depends uh typically I'm engaging just because I think if I'm meeting someone, it's important for them to feel like I'm listening and I'm connected. But there are times when I'm tired. So if you meet me when I'm tired, I don't think I'm gonna be that engaging. You got me on a good day, Amanda.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh my gosh. I thought you were engaging. I would say fun too, because I thought we had some fun even before we fully got into it. I totally did. What is one word someone that knows you extremely well would use to describe you as? I've had a number of people tell me that I'm brave. Okay. What is one word you'd use to describe yourself?

SPEAKER_00:

Curious. Yeah. It takes every every bit of my being to not ask you the same question that you've asked me. Every single- I'm like, what about you? Like I did it once, but I really curtailed my curious nature. It's like, I want to know about Amanda.

SPEAKER_02:

There is, I don't even remember the episode off the top of my head, but there is an episode where I was the guest on my show and I answered these questions. I think it was the hundredth episode. My answers probably changed, but I have answered them. Also, mainly because so many guests were like, When are you gonna answer these? And I'm like, I guess I need to answer that too. You do. That's fair. What is one word that if someone didn't like you or agree with your mindset would choose to describe you as What is one word that someone would choose to describe me that didn't like me?

SPEAKER_00:

Probably stubborn.

SPEAKER_02:

I think that's what I said for that one for myself too.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. My husband said, Well, you could say that that could be resolute. I'm like, yeah, but the ones that don't like you are not gonna say you're resolute. They're gonna say you are stubborn.

SPEAKER_02:

What is one word you're trying to embody right now? Grace.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, like I'd like to have more grace. There's an herb called Rue R-U-E. It's a plant, and it's called the herb of grace, and I keep putting it in my herbal infusions in hopes that it will just that I will like suddenly become more graceful, that I'll have more grace, but I'm working on it.

SPEAKER_02:

Love that. Second segment is the final five, and these can be answered in a sentence. What is the best advice you've heard or received?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, it's gonna hearken back to frivolous joy. Self-care in terms of frivolous joy is essential to a healthy life. So, not just self-care, but actual frivolous joy as your self-care practice is essential to a healthy life. Why is that? Uh well, I think that we have a lot of uh beat up people. Our day and age is too fast for our human form, it's too fast for our mental capacity, there's too much coming at us. What is considered the ideal lifestyle is a very unhealthy lifestyle. And so I hear a lot of self-care is essential to a healthy life. I completely agree with that, but I think we have to start plugging in the wonder that we had as children. I think it's one of the most amazing things about kids is that they can be absolutely delighted with the little things because they are actively looking for frivolous joy. They're not saying that, they're just amazed that silly putty, if that still exists, that silly putty can stick on newspapers and come off with the print on it. Like everything is amazing. And I think if we stop and slow down, we can see that the world is really amazing, but you need to slow down to do that. Like the majority of people that are unable to have kindness in their hearts, a lot of them are broken, not broken beyond fixable, but they've just got some broken pieces. Perhaps they have trauma in their lives. But a lot of times it's also that they're too hurried. They're just feeling like they have to get somewhere, and then they don't happen to be human. And that's a really unsafe place to be. That's when you fall. That's when you say something rude because somebody's in your way. That's when you see somebody that needs help, but you can't help them because you don't have time. It's that we've got to go fast, we've got to get here, we've got to do the certain thing. When we slow down, we have a little more time to focus on what is important to being, you know, back to integrity. How can I be a woman of integrity? Well, the first thing is slowing down enough to know what integrity is at that moment.

SPEAKER_02:

What is the worst advice you've heard or received?

SPEAKER_00:

The worst advice would be this blank will make me happier. This blank will make me better. So when I say blank, it could be in the material item, it could be this pill, this supplements, this new diet, this new friend, this new vacation, like anything outside of me. If I'm being sold that this will make me feel better, there's a good chance that I need to fill something up within myself first. Because, you know, a holy cup is not going to be able to contain anything, right? A cup with holes at the bottom. But if you can fill up those, if you can patch those up, then you can fill up on all that stuff. And, you know, that vacation may be quite remarkable and wonderful. And that new item may be something that you can really cherish. But if you're trying to fill up those holes with it, although the advertisers will tell you that this is going to change your life, almost always that is not the case.

SPEAKER_02:

What is something that you used to value that you no longer value?

SPEAKER_00:

Keeping outdated promises. Again, being a woman that wants to be a woman of integrity. If my word was, if I said I was going to be somewhere, I was going to be there. But a lot of times, life circumstances change. And so if you have a sore throat and you need to stay home and rest, do you still push yourself to go help somebody move because you said that you were going to help them move that day or whatever the reason is? Like, you know, it's so easy to get caught up in the, well, I said I was going to, I made a promise. And I want to say that you have permission to go, I'm so sorry, but that's not going to work for me anymore. Like that promise that I made, I'm so sorry. And I think that the people that do this, keeping their promises no matter what, I don't think you ever swing to the other side of the spectrum and like you don't keep any promise. That's not at all what happens. Typically, what happens is you just think through, you give yourself a little bit more of a buffer before you say yes, because it's really uncomfortable to change to change a promise. It's really uncomfortable to renegotiate a commitment. And so for me, a lot of times my day planner is not often near me. Um, and it's in physical form, it's in paper and pen. And that is that's intentional. So that when somebody says, can you blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I'll go, well, I need to check my day planner. And that really means I want to, I want to take a minute. I want to think about this. I want to sit down and look at the rest of my week. I want to talk to my husband, who's really good at helping me kind of slow down a little bit and see if this is something that I really want to do or if it's something that I think I should do. And then that just being okay with not keeping outdated promises, it now helps me renegotiate in terms of what I can and cannot do.

SPEAKER_02:

That makes a lot of sense. I like that. If you could describe what you would want your legacy to be, as if someone was reading it, what would you want it to say?

SPEAKER_00:

That's a really hard one. Now I'm gonna have to go back and listen to your answer. Because that's a hard one. Like legacy, it sounds so profound. I guess I would hope that the adventures that I have, the fun stories that I have of my life, I would hope that they could inspire others to change their lives too with small actions. Because everything that I've done that sounds really fun, and I've got many, many more years to do many, many more fun things. All of those things started with small changes, tiny little incremental changes. I love that.

SPEAKER_02:

That makes so much sense. If you could create one law in the world that everyone had to follow, what would it be? And I want to know why.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I don't have any background in law, first of all. So what I do know is a lot of the laws that have been made, always there's like some weird little side angle where so I'm gonna say that in this magical world where I can make this law and people actually have to follow it. Like they there's no sneaking around and doing it sideways. My law would be um honesty in politics. So I if I could make if I could wave a magic wand and make the law that every politician had to tell the truth, I bet you a lot of people would not be running for office. I think that would be I think people would be thinking through it like if there was this law where you had to tell the truth and it actually was enforceable, like people truly were telling the truth. I think that we could change things quite remarkably.

SPEAKER_02:

Now, why would be that be your law?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I think that um huh I think that uh for me there's a lot of in the United States government and probably elsewhere, I think there's a lot of money behind some of the decisions that we make. And I don't know that those decisions are necessarily for the people by the people. And I think that that's only because there is corruption, and corruption starts with dishonesty. Like if you had to tell the truth and you were going to get paid to make this decision, and you had to tell the truth while you were getting paid, I think it would stop some of it. Quite honestly, this is a really this uh this is a difficult question. I mean, I don't like a law. What was the best one that you got for like a law that was made? I couldn't.

SPEAKER_02:

And even tell you the best one. They all vary. I get a lot about kindness, some about honesty, just honesty in general. But kindness or being nice to your neighbor. That's a pretty frequent one. And then people are always like, I don't know how you enforce it.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm like, not the point. The magic, the magical. Could you be kind to one another? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I you're a lot of them have tied into that. Like, that's been the most frequent type of answer.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

Kindness to the neighbor, or some are like even kindness to the people who have hurt you, or something along those lines.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, I'm just like, you need to be honest. Fess up, tell me what you've done, then we can make decisions based on what you have to say. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't know if I've had one that I would say is the best one for that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

They've all varied, but a lot of them have tied into honesty and kindness. All right. And then you're like the first one who has not actually said to me, I don't know how this would be enforced. And I'm like, I'm not trying to get you to actually enforce a law. Like, I know I've got the paralegal background, but this is literally not even a question I came up with. It's a Jay Shetty question. I'm not actually trying to get you to enforce this.

SPEAKER_00:

It's next time we see you like lobbying Congress, and we're like, oh my gosh, she's doing it. Kindness is now a law. Who knew? And I'll be like, she should have done the honesty one. I really wanted to do the honesty one. Elizabeth, thank you so much. This has been a blast. Same here. This is great, Amanda. Love East Cobra, East Coast humor. So thank you for laughing with me. It was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh my gosh. I found all your jokes and everything you said so funny. I do just like to give it back to the guest. Any final words of wisdom, anything else you want to share with the listeners before we fully close out.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh my gosh. Um that's no pressure. Yeah, they should all create their own laws. That's what I want to leave them with. And also, I have a gift for your audience. I have a free habit tracker that I've made that gives you a few steps on how to make sizable, doable goals. And you can get that at my website, which is www.create wellness project forward slash gift. And also create your own laws because I think that's a really good, I think that's a good practice.

SPEAKER_02:

I will link that in the show notes. And if people want to get in touch with you, Wayo is the best place for them to do that.

SPEAKER_00:

That probably my website is the best place. That's again create wellnessproject.com. And yeah, this was so much fun. Thank you very much for having me and congratulations on being well over a hundred episodes. That's a big deal.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you. Thank you so much. This was a blast. I really appreciate it. Thank you guys so much for tuning in to that fun and inspiring episode with Elizabeth. I wanted to share a few things that really stayed with me after this conversation.

SPEAKER_03:

This episode felt like one of those slow burning ones.

SPEAKER_02:

The kind that you don't just listen to, you feel it inside your body. I also wanted to share how Elizabeth very generously sent me a copy of her book, The Homesteader Mindset. And honestly, I am so grateful for that. As I sat with it and read it, it's one of those books. It's about homesteading, but it's so much of it is a reminder of how to slowly come back home to yourself through small intentional choices. One of the biggest things that stood out to me in our conversation was how Elizabeth talked about integrity, not perfection, and not even consistency, but checking in with yourself in the present moment. Who am I right now? And am I honoring that? That really landed for me. Because so often we judge ourselves based on who we used to be or who we think we should be, instead of who we actually are today. Another moment that really stood out to me was how she talked about illness, not letting it become her identity, but being honest about where you are without letting it define you. That feels so important. Whether we're talking about physical health, mental health, or how it sees in life. Also, I keep thinking about the idea of tiny increments that Elizabeth mentioned. Five minutes, one habit, one small promise you can actually keep. Not overhauling your entire life, creating the momentum. And that theme shows up so clearly, both in the episode and in Elizabeth's book. Lastly, my other biggest takeaway was the idea of frivolous joy. Letting joy be unnecessary, letting it be small, letting it be present. That challenged me in the best way. Because joy doesn't have to be owned to be valid. So if this episode resonated with you, I invite you and encourage you to sit with a few gentle questions, not trying to fix anything, just to notice. Whatever feels true and best to you and your body. Where in my life am I trying to force change instead of allowing it to happen naturally?

SPEAKER_03:

What would five minutes of care look like for me right now? Where in my life could I allow myself a little more joy without needing a reason.

SPEAKER_02:

If you're curious about checking out Elizabeth's book, I will link it in the show notes for you guys to get it directly. Even if you're not someone who thinks of yourself as a homesteading person, the mindset piece makes her book so powerful and so relevant for anyone in the life. My hope is that you don't rush past this episode. Let it meet you where you are. And if something stood out to you, sit with it, journal on it, or share it with someone who might need to hear that. And I thank you guys so much for tuning in to this really fun, mindset-shifting, inspiring episode with Elizabeth. And if something really shifted for you or something really resonated, I would love to hear that reflection. My contact info is in the show notes and you can connect with me directly. As always, I thank you guys so much for tuning in to this episode of Manda's mindset. As always, keep breathing, keep shifting, and remember, everything is figure outable. Thanks guys. Until next time. In case no one told you today, I'm proud of you. I'm voting for you. And you got this. As always, if you enjoyed the show, I would really appreciate it if you would leave me a five-star rating, leave a review, and share with anyone you think would benefit from that. And don't forget, you are only one mindset shift away from shifting your late. Thanks guys, until next time.

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