Stop Complaining: Why Every Challenge Is the Best Thing That Could Happen

Most people spend their lives complaining. Welcome to the show. Tired of the hype about living a dream. It's time for truth. This is the place for tools, power, and real talk.So you can create the life you dream and deserve your ultimate life. Subscribe, share, create. You have infinite power. Bitching about the weather, the government, the economy, their job, taxes, prices, something.Complaining, complaining, complaining. And I always wonder, what good does that do? I have done my fair share, believe me, not immune to that.And I'm not pointing fingers, but what I've noticed consistently is it doesn't do a damn thing. Let's learn why not and what to do instead. So here's the thing. Let's make a funny assumption.Let's assume that whatever happened was the very best damn thing that ever could have happened. I know that might be a stretch. You got in a car wreck and you say that's the best thing that could have happened?Well, I don't know, but what if we just play that game for a minute? Okay, I want you to remember a funny story that I'm sure you've heard. A little boy goes into room and it's full of horse poop.And instead of being disappointed or frustrated, he dives into the horse poop, starts digging, and someone says, like, what are you doing? And he says, well, with all this horse poop, there's got to be a pony in here somewhere, right?And the idea is that no matter what is going on in your life, you can turn it into something else. Now, you might have a story about, it's not fair. I shouldn't have to do that. Why did this happen to me?And I want you to ask yourself, how much did that kind of energy ever change anything? How much did that kind of complaining ever fix anything?How much did that kind of energy ever fix the world or the weather, or the economy, or your job or your boss or your. Whatever, someone that betrayed you. It doesn't. I have an author that I love and I think I'm attributing something to.Her name is Byron Katie, and she wrote a book called Loving what Is.And she regularly says something like this when someone's complaining about something that happened, she says, that's exactly what should have happened. And they look at her in surprise and she says, then you know how I know how? Because it did.And that view is, you know, it's like saying, well, what is, is, and what I can promise you, spending now nearly 20 years as a coach, a mentor, a high performance activator, the ultimate alchemist and all the names that have been used to describe me complaining about what is does nothing. So stop it. Stop it now. It's low grade thinking. It gets in the way of your creativity.It blocks your power, it diminishes your worth, and it lowers your ability to respond to the sit. Every one of those things is true, demonstrably, in the lab, in your neurotransmitters and everything else. Okay?So let's think about what to do instead. Let's start from the place that whatever it is that happened, that's the best damn thing that could have happened to you today, now, here. Okay?What does that bring to bear? If I say this is the worst day of my life, what it does in my body, I get weaker physically.Neurotransmitters kick in that make me sad, depressed, cortisol, you know, other things that are stress hormones, stress, neurotransmitters. And I get negative. The actual measurable consequences of that is I get stupider.In other words, measurable creativity goes down, motivation goes down. So if my creativity and my motivation go down, what do you think happens to my ability to respond? Well, pretty obvious.My ability to respond is lower by at least two or three or four factors. I can't see things, opportunities, possibilities I otherwise would have seen. Whatever I do see seems more overwhelming, more difficult.Yeah, I could fix it if this, you know, something. And my ability to conceive how to do that disappears. So just thinking this is impossible, I'll never get there. I can't do it. Makes that true.And you've heard that before. Henry Ford's credited with saying that or something like it. And so are others. If you think you can or think you can't, you're right. Okay?And medical science proves over and over again the single biggest determinant in a patient's healing is their will to get better. Even and especially actually in the most serious illnesses. So I want you to think about that.That means that those chemicals that we create in our mind activate potential. They activate capability to do stuff or they deactivate it.So if I get frustrated and negative, creativity and motivation and resilience and stuff goes in the toilet, I've become weaker. And that's unconditionally proven. And the opposite also.When I believe that I can, when I believe that I will, when I think there's gotta be a way, my creativity goes up. In other words, my ability to see a solution or create an avenue forward. Motivation goes up, strength goes up, resilience goes up, endurance goes up.All of those things go up just by thinking. So since we have a choice about our thoughts, why wouldn't we then immediately say, okay, I choose to think. Yes, I choose to think up.I choose to think positively. I choose to think. There's got to be a way through this, out of this, under this, around it, over it, whatever it is, right? And there always is.There's always a way forward. The sun's always going to come up tomorrow. And we've all heard, you know, the night is darkest just before the dawn and that sort of thing.That's all the same kind of thinking.So I want you to sit there now and think about somewhere in your life right now where you, you know, we call that stinking thinking or whatever, where you're using negative thoughts to rule the day. Pick a situation right now and let's walk through it, okay? Pick a situation that is a struggle for you or that seems hard or impossible.And let's, let's do some specific things to get, get through that. Because my goal, as you know, is 300 million people. Million. 300 million people with a message for you.The message is your worth, your identity is the divine being, your possibility, which is infinite. The ownership you have of your life. And this is a lot focused on the O of ownership. You own your life. S is sovereignty.And you're the only one that owns it. And that means what you declare shall be. Now, we need to think about that. We've all seen one or more or all of the Harry Potter movies 15 times.They wave a wand and stuff happens. You have that ability.It doesn't manifest energetically in a green or red or orange or purple or whatever blue stream of light and then beep, pops into existence. You know, sometimes we think that would be fun, but the truth is much more interesting. You have a beam.It comes out of the energetic part of your soul. Your thinking. We don't know exactly how that works, but you know darn good and well, you've walked into a room and you've been.Someone comes in and you know right away if they're hat, sappy, had or sappy. Right? Happy or sad, frustrated, negative, angry. You know that. Not just because of the expressions on their face.In fact, often you can see it when you're not even looking. How do you know? Well, we don't know. But there's energy transmitted from our emotions. There's energy transmitted from our spirits.When you're with someone in a particular setting, you can feel the communication and connection. You know that. Well, why not Take advantage of that. Do you have a Harry Potter beam? It's called the energy of your thoughts.I read a book, several books. This particular one's written by a Harvard PhD who worked with the FBI and CIA and counterterrorism and everything else.And he demonstrated repeatedly and the experiments been done over and over again that just thinking statistically affects the outcomes of coin tosses. The alpha particle decay of plutonium 420. I mean, if there was ever anything scientific that was exactly. Alpha particle decay is one of those things.Yet just by thinking, they measurably influenced alpha particle decay. And they happened to use plutonium 420 over and over and over and over again. Statistically significant in a way it couldn't be ignored. So.And they even did one experiment from space, right? So I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty of all that because it's going to take too long. But the.The fact is, your belief about something does influence the outcome. And we talked about how it influences the body and the mind, the neurotransmitters and the strength and the attention and the focus.But there are other energetic things that happen.Also, that whole idea of that Thoreau said, you know, move boldly in the direction of the life you imagined and you pass an unseen threshold and cool stuff starts happening. He didn't say that, but he said something like, you know, the forces of universe align with you, et cetera.So let's talk about one aspect of this right now for a minute, and that is the trap of complaining. Okay, When I start complaining, or you do, where does our focus go? Our focus goes on lack. What's missing? Why didn't my team win?Why didn't I get that promotion? Why didn't that client buy? Why didn't my shoe fit? Why did this happen to me? Why me? Well, I have never found that to be a useful question.The only time it's slightly useful is if there's some change I want to make. I did something and I realized if I prepared differently, a different outcome would happen. But that's not what I'm talking about.I'm talking about that whiny type of complaining. It's why me? You know, that sort of feeling that gets you nowhere.When was the last time that sort of language produced a genie that brought the Amazon box with the gold bar? Like that would be never, right? All right, so let's just own that truth. Here's what happens when you say, why me?Or when I used to do so much is, well, what if I'd done this? What if, what if, what if? And you know what happens?You actually don't have a flipping clue what would have happened if you made a different decision. You think you do, and you paint this scenario. And number one, you don't know.And number two, you're wasting time and resources, energy, emotion, effort, intensity for an outcome you don't even know about. Now, I want to use that example to create a juxtaposition.If I spend energy complaining that energy is no longer available to create, that's just a fact. The energy is used up, the time is used up, and I got nothing except a rash of neurotransmitters in my body that are uncomfortable and not fun.That's all I got for my trouble, much rather to get progress on the thing that I'm trying to create, because then the energy is spent creating. Okay, so I got an example for you, and it's out of my own life. One of the things I get to do is make this podcast.I edit books, I write other stuff for articles and for social media content and. Right. You know, I write books and so forth.When I look at any of those projects with the idea that, oh, this is going to be difficult, oh, I'm stuck, or, oh, it's going to be hard, not only does my motivation to do it go in the toilet, my creativity while I'm doing it goes in the toilet. And that's kind of a spiral.So if I think about, oh, I said I was going to do this today, and then I think, oh, I don't know, you know, where that spiral goes. I don't want to, don't want to, gets worse and worse. Then you go, binge watch Netflix. I don't do that. But other things. Right.On the other hand, if I say, ooh, I can't wait till I get that done. Ooh, that's going to be fun. Oh, it builds a spiral in a different direction. Now, you know that. That's obvious. That's not news.What you may not be remembering is it's your choice which spiral you get on. Now, I've said this before in other episodes, and I'm going to say it again. And this is the magic of notice and choose.Write that frame down or that phrase, notice and choose. It's a simple tool and it's invincible. It never fails, and it's worth a billion dollars. And you can argue with me.And the only basis for your argument would be it doesn't produce a stream of blue light and a Stack of cash. It doesn't. But it gives you the ability to use your beam of light, love and creativity to create a stack of cash.Notice and choose simply means step one. Get in the habit of noticing what you're thinking and feeling. What is it? What's going on in my body? Am I uptight? Am I upset? Am I frustrated?Am I distracted? Notice and then choose how you want to respond to that. Most of us don't notice. We abdicate. We. We just react.I was just having a conversation with one of my authors about life and they're further on in life and they talked about an unplanned life where they were just reactively going through things and they detailed how that worked and then contrasted that with proactively planning.Now, I'm not naive enough, and neither are you, to think that anything or everything, and maybe not anything, we plan goes exactly according to plan, but the planning gives us resilience and options and possibility. Okay? Simply reacting to everything makes us, puts us by choice, at the mercy of everything else. All right, so let's talk about.Remember, we're, we're. We're using the premise here that whatever happened is the best damn thing it could be. The best thing that could have happened. Okay?Now the point is this. What if you take the view that whatever happened was supposed to happen. Now, sometimes people say it this way. Well, there's a reason for everything.There's a purpose in everything. And I hate that it's a wimp ass way to think about this principle. The power, power move is this is good for me.How can I make it so that was supposed to happen is a wimp ass, weak move that is victim in its origins. And then we sit around and say, I guess I'll just see whatever. And that is useless. That was great. What can I create? You can even use that as a rhyme.That was great. What can I create? Now I dare you to do that. I dare you to do it. And then tell me what happens. In fact, I'd love for you to tell me what happens.Let me give you this thing here, right here, kellenflukermedia.com that's a place where you can get a hold of me contact form. You can Also comment on YouTube and wherever you find in the podcast.But if you want to talk kellenflukermedia.com because my goal is to help you, you listening right now. Reach your purpose, prosperity and joy. I have a. I have a commitment, a mission of reaching 300 million people this year. And I'm going to.We're on track. We're on target. It's going to happen to help you reach the goals you want. You have lofty goals and you deserve every one of them.It's your birthright. But there isn't a Harry Potter wand. There is a growth process that works for everything.And we just have to go get on that and then say, that was great. What can I create? Now, here's another way to think about that. Stop arguing with reality and start mining it. What does it mean to mine?Well, you've seen pictures of old gold rushes where people dig up dirt and, you know, they're panning for gold or they're looking in the ground in mines for veins of gold and that kind of thing. Well, what does it mean to mine reality?Well, I'll tell you what it doesn't mean complaining or arguing about reality is that shouldn't have happened. They shouldn't have done that. I'm so mad. I'll never trust them again. Never talk to them. I'm going to call the cops.I'm going to call the spiritual cops. I'm going to bash them.I'm going to diss them on social whatever it is that's arguing with reality and it doesn't change anything and it doesn't make you feel good. Mining reality is asking the question, what can I create with this? What is possible to build with this?I'll give you an example, kind of a simple one I had a few years ago before the pandemic. I joined a BNI group for a few years back in 2016.And B and I is structured so that there's only one person in any chapter that does a particular thing. One auto. Auto insurance agent. In my case, a business coach. One business coach. Now, this chapter had a business coach and they were leaving.They had just left to go to some gig they were going to do across the country. And so I didn't know this person, but I thought it'd be great to just chat with them and see what.What they thought of the group and how they were doing and just get acquainted. Right. And so we set up an appointment. And like a few hours before the appointment, the they texted me and said, nah, I don't have time.And I said, okay, cool. Should we reschedule? Nah, I don't really want to worry about it. Okay. Now that was what happened. That was reality.One way to think about that was he's a douchebag. He's dissing me, and what a jerk. What I did Instead was, I know, did notice and choose. I said, what would I like to create from this?Well, I don't know this person. What I don't want to create is negative feelings because that serves no one.What I don't want to do is close down the opportunity to ever talk to him again. So what I said instead is I just reached back out and said, okay, that's great. Look forward to chatting another time. That was it.And I chose because I said, what can I create from this? And that became, not only was it a breakthrough, then I did eventually get to talk to him.It changed the nature of relationships and all that kind of stuff. So it was really, really simple. Notice and choose. Really simple. Notice and choose.All right, now let's go at this from a different angle, which is let's figure out how to turn some hardship into flow. One of the most obvious hardships. I mean, there's all kinds of.Someone close to you dies, okay, you have a business partner who betrays you, maybe your life partner betrays you, maybe someone, maybe you get a fatal illness or a near fatal illness and you're in the hospital for some weeks or months. Those are big ones. And what I'm going to talk about applies to that. But let's talk about a smaller one because smaller ones happen more often. Okay?Now, I'm a business owner and I write books and I launch books and I have programs and I help a lot of people do that too. In fact, if you're listening to this, I'm inviting you to Dream buildwrite it dot com. See this Dream buildwrite it dot com.It's a challenge that I'm holding at the end of September. Be a couple of weeks after you get this, as the release of this is mid September and it starts the 29th.And the reason I'm inviting you there is because I know if you're listening to this ultimate life stuff, you have a yearning to serve. You have a heart to serve. You have a passion. Maybe you're a coach of some kind, maybe not. Maybe you have a different business.But I know if you're listening to this kind of material, your goal is to add good to the world. Your goal is one of love and service. So I know that about you helping people mine.And this we're talking mining mine their life story for the gold that they have is one of the most fun things that I do and I make. I promise you it'll make you the most money. If you have not fully and intentionally mined your life for the gold.Of your becoming the journey of getting to where you are today. You're leaving a boatload of money, joy and fun and purpose on the table. So dreambuildrite it.com let's go there now.Let's say you're doing some kind of business and you launch a new product or service or you're going to have a conversation with a person that might be a potential client. Let's say that's true and they blow you off or they say no or they, you know, that just happens. What are your choices? Choice one.Like I could have done with that fellow. You can get angry, you can get frustrated at the waste of time.You can go further down that rabbit hole and say I'll never make enough money to do this. I'll never be able to support my life. This is not for me. I'm not cut out for this.And you know, depending on how long you spin on that spiral, you can go all the way down to some crazy stuff, right? That is one way to do that. That is turning hardship into bigger hardship. Turning hardship into flow. Question number one.What is the gift with this extra time? What is the gift? I'm not going to spend it bitching, I'm going to do something productive.Ask and answer the question, what is the gift with this extra time? Second way to turn hardship into flow. Get curious, send a note back.If someone blows off an appointment and says hey, I understand, really like to get back together with you for these reasons, thinking about you, etc, would you be open to rescheduling the conversation? And maybe they'll say yes and maybe they'll say no. But the energy with which you ask that question has a lot to do with the outcome.If you feel hassled, angry, frustrated and you communicate that, nobody wants to talk to somebody who's pissed off at them, so don't do that. You can just by choosing how you react, turn some kind of hardship into the raw material for growth. Here's another way.Let's say you're scheduling appointments and they keep canceling a lot. What's the opportunity there? The opportunity is for you to get with a mentor and say what am I doing now? Why is this happening to me?But what am I doing that's causing me to have such a high fall through rate on my appointments? Can you see something here that I can do differently that will help me have a greater follow through?And there's an opportunity for learning and growth.But your opportunity from learning, for learning and growth will not be there if you're mad, if you're angry, if you're frustrated, if you're blaming because of those neurotransmitters, it shuts down our learning. Okay? Bitterness drains energy. Curiosity creates energy. Anger kills, love heals.I read a book called Anger Kills, written by a guy, a doctor in New York City. And he did a decades long study about people who were angry, a lot frustrated, negative, angry, seeing the dark side, that sort of thing.He found they lived many years shorter, I think it was between five and seven years shorter on average, statistically than people who chose to be positive and to create instead of react.All right, so let's talk about some practical things to do in the moment when something happens that's disappointing or knocks you off your, you know, knocks you off your beam, you're flat on your back, boom. Why did this happen? The first thing is intentionally take a pause. Just pause. Now, how do you do that? I will tell you. Go do some.What's called box breathing, Box breathing or rectangle breathing. But I'll teach you how to do it. Here it is. You breathe in four counts. One, two, three, four. You hold it. Four counts, one, two, three, four.Breathe out. 1, 2, 3, 4. Hold it with empty lungs. 2, 3, 4. Now, here's what I can promise you.After you've done two or three boxes, your mind is on breathing because you have your counting. And especially when you're either holding your breath or holding your lungs empty, there's some concentration that it takes to do that. Okay?Breathing is natural, in and out. But if you breathe and you can do rectangle like 6 in, 4 hold, 6 out, 4 hold. It doesn't matter the size of the box.It's got to be at least four, and it's got to be slow breathing. But if you do that, it regulates your nervous system.So remember, we're talking about those neurotransmitters of frustration, negativity, narrow vision, you know, cortisol, et cetera, et cetera, that come in when we get mad or frustrated or victimy. You know, we get in the victim place. Those neurotransmitters, they just come, but they come because of what we're thinking.If you move to breathing, and I'm giving you this, because breathing you, you can do anywhere, right? Your breath is always there. It's always with you. And so box or rectangle breathing is something you have available to you at every instant.And the blessing about it is it occupies your mind. If I'm going, you know, it's hard to think about Other stuff when you're thinking about your breathing, right? So that's a thing to do.You can do it anywhere. Then after you've done five or six box breaths, then you can say, what can I create from this? Not with anger.Because if you're saying it with anger, you're already pouring, you know, adrenaline, cortisol, and those action and stress hormones into your bloodstream. Say it with a smile. I don't know. What can I create from this? Oh, I could create a monument to stupidity. Yeah, I could do that.What else can I create with this? It's just as easy to lean in with love as with resentment. Hear that? It is just as easy to lean in with love as resentment. Now, you may have a habit.Ooh, those habits make great servants, but terrible masters. You may have a habit of reacting angrily. It was a guy I went golfing with once.He was an engineer that worked in one of my groups and his boss and the engineer and his boss and me, we went golfing one time. And golfing with him was the strangest experience.Every stroke he was in a tirade of screaming and swearing and throwing his golf clubs and, you know, cussing at the stroke. It didn't go where he wanted or whatever. And I'm not a particularly good golfer, so I was just out having fun, right?I can tell you that that choice builds patterns, that negativity builds. And it certainly didn't help his flipping golf game because it got worse as it went along, right? So your opportunity, it's.It is just as easy to lean in with love is with resentment. He could have laughed at that. I laughed at my shots. And, you know, I was never better than 10 or 12 over par. If I. If I.If I scored under full on bogey, right? 90 and a 72. That was a good day. That was a great day, right? And I never treated it like anything other than a place to go have fun.But that was a choice. And it's just as easy to lean in with love as it is to go from resentment. So let's talk about building a life of resilient joy.Because you and I both know stuff's going to happen, happens all the time. Stuff you didn't want to, stuff that you didn't plan, stuff that you're frustrated about. That's going to happen.You can create a habit of reacting positively. You can create a habit of saying, what can I build here? If your habit right now is, what the frick, how come that person cut me off?You know, that sort of Reaction. Okay, that is a habit. You weren't born that way. That is a habit you have created. It comes from the idea that you or I are entitled.Everybody needs to know what I'm doing, get out of my way, and just let me do what I want. Well, nobody owes me or you anything. So you can get rid of that notion right now. And the reason to is because it's killing you.It's killing your creativity, your productivity, your cash, your bank account, your relationships, killing your ability to love yourself, et cetera, et cetera. So this habit is worth developing. Here's a couple ways to start the day. Start the day.Walk in and look in the mirror in your own eyes deeply and say, I love you. I love you. I love you for showing up, for being here. No matter what happens, I respect you. I love you, and I'll be here for you tonight.And you can create your own set of sayings, but the point is, start leaning in with love. Start doing things that allow you to practice. A different way of talking, a different way of viewing things. When something.Even the first thing, this is notice and choose at its finest. When the first thing happens today, that isn't what you want. Just choose. This was great. Even if you get mad first. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.This is great. What can I create? This is just right. What can I build here? Okay, now, this is a notice and choose exercise, and it takes some mental discipline.But I can promise you the rewards are off the charts. They're amazing. They're beautiful. And I also make you another promise. And that is, it will become a habit.You will get habituated to having that little tiny intervention and creating space for yourself to say, what could I build here?And you might actually do at, you know, the virtuoso level here, is to actually look for the reason why this unexpected and initially undesired thing is better for you. Right? I can remember a time when I was driving home from Costco shopping and I was going to get on the freeway.I had to go about 10 minutes up the freeway to the. To the house. And something was blocking the road. Big traffic jam or something, Construction. That's what it was.And so I decided, sort of getting frustrated, I said, I just take the other way. I knew it was going to take five or ten minutes longer, right? And I just take the other way. And so I did.And driving that other way was on a different frontage road that had a thing overlooking the freeway. And as I got to the right vantage point, I saw a terrible, terrible Accident.Now, I don't know this for sure, but there weren't emergency vehicles yet.And the timing and location of the accident compared with the timing of, you know, my entrance into the freeway made me know to the core of my soul that would have been me. And so it was a. It was a blast of both gratitude and joy in the face of the truth.This is the best damn thing that ever could have happened, saved my life, and that's the story I have about it. I don't know that, but the timing and location made it feel like that. And there was this otherworldly energy that felt like that, saved your life.So that's a stark and sort of extreme example, but it's true. It really happened. And it reinforced this idea that, one, we get to choose.We get to choose our attitude about it, and that that choice of attitude creates energy, momentum, joy, love, cash, and everything else. The other thing also ties into the last episode when we talked about 1%. This learning is cumulative. When you get a habit of saying, that's great.What can I create? Best damn thing that could have happened to me. Your life is more joyful. You have no time spent in stress and frustration and negativity.You don't have to have stress, frustration, and negativity. You don't. There's no required allotment of that that you got to carry. Empty your backpack, smile. It's the best thing that could happen to you.All right, so whatever happens, it is the best damn thing. It is your raw material. It is the place from which you create your life. And it's exactly what should have happened. Why? Because it did.So I'm inviting you to practice this mantra today. This is great. What can I create?No matter what happens, and even if you've got to sit down to the side for a minute, take a few breaths, collect yourself, and say, yeah, even if that. Do it. Notice and choose. Notice and choose is $1 billion worth of success. I promise.If you want to talk to me, go here, helenfluecigermedia.com and use the contact form if you'd like to mine your life story, which is exactly what I'm talking about.Learning how all the negative things that happened in your life have made you the powerhouse that you are and then be able to serve with it and create income impact and have more fun. The greatest gift you have is your life story. If you're not using it, you're leaving money on the table and joy on the side of the road.Unused, undiscovered, and unenjoyed. I promise you without hesitation or question if you will apply these things.If you will just take a moment to learn some new habits, practice some new skills, you can have anything you want and be living your ultimate life right here, right now. Your opportunity for massive growth is right in front of you. Every episode gives you practical tips and practices that will change everything.If you want to know more, go to kellenfluekegermedia.com if you want more free tools, go here. YourUltimateLife ca subscribe share.