Episode 10 – Overcoming the Addiction to Achievement

Christy Fechser 0:00
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of all in the name of growth, I am really excited that you’re here. But I’m super duper excited to have Megan Miller on today. She’s our special guest. And I’m really excited to be able to jump into her story and to share some really amazing nuggets here. So Megan is actually an intentional living expert, which I love that I think that it’s so amazing to be able to classify what it is that you’re doing and how you’re showing up in the world. So Megan, welcome,

Megan Miller 0:31
Christy, I am so so so so happy to be here with you and see your beautiful smiling face for those of us that for those of you that aren’t watching us on YouTube just yet, Christy, do you have a beautiful, authentic smile at a hotel that you’re just so happy doing this and building this and that makes me happy to see and happy to be here.

Christy Fechser 0:55
You’re right. I do love doing this. And I am happy that you’re here. And that’s why I have such a genuine smile today because I’m excited about this conversation. So so excited. So before we jump in, I want to do an icebreaker, which is just something that I do with all my guests just to kind of like, ease us in, you know, before we get to the good stuff. So I have a couple of questions. What is your favorite book?

Megan Miller 1:16
And I love books. So I’m gonna sidebar to total like ADHD. So bring me back Christy when you need me to. Interesting. I got off books for a long time because life got a hold of me. And it wasn’t until I started reading books again over COVID that I started to have this feeling of returning home. And then it hit me. My favorite favorite class in school was Mrs. Dobies eighth grade creative writing class. And it was the first time in my life that I felt a part of something. And I think we all have that in class and in when we’re going through school, something that really feels like home, but then we lose that through our corporate grind and what the world tells us to do. And we will get there but back to your question on my favorite book there ourselves so many, but a couple of game changers for me has been I’m a huge Mel Robbins fan. Have you heard of Mel Robbins? Yes. Absolutely. Oh, from in one Northeastern er to another. I just love the fact that she’s real. She’s raw. She’s not trying to sell you something that she hasn’t lived through. Five second rule change changed my life. Five second rule is really good. And then the other one I just read Oh, that your audience will love for all of us high achievers in hand raised. It’s called the gap to gain by Dan Sullivan. And the basic foundation of a Christy is how we live our lives in gap mode. So you get the job you always thought you wanted then you want the promotion. You get the house you always wanted 3000 square feet, then you want the 6000 square foot house. You get the car you always want it then you want the luxury model and how you’re always climbing hustling up this ladder of air quote success that never ends. Because It’s you versus you. And you never take the time ever to look at the gains.

Christy Fechser 3:17
Yes. Oh, that sounds really good.

Megan Miller 3:19
Oh, that one. I was like salivating over I couldn’t put it down.

Christy Fechser 3:23
Oh, it sounds it sounds so so good. So many good nuggets to come out of it too. That’s amazing. Okay, chocolate or vanilla?

Megan Miller 3:31
Oh ,can I do twist as that? Rolls? Of course you can twist, twist as we talked about earlier. Hey, don’t put me in a lane. That’s

Christy Fechser 3:48
okay, what is your favorite destination?

Megan Miller 3:52
Ah, anywhere I am with my husband.

Christy Fechser 3:56
I love that answer. You know, people sometimes ask the question, like, if you could go to dinner with anybody, you know, in the past, living dead, whatever. Who would it be? I’m always my first answer is when I was been.

Megan Miller 4:10
Oh, I love that.

Christy Fechser 4:12
Like I just love spending time with him. He is my best friend genuinely for 22 years. And we like you know, we hit rock bottom. We’ve been there we’ve done we’ve come back so like there’s there’s a sweetness there that it’s deserved. And I yeah, I think he’s pretty great.

Megan Miller 4:27
Oh, I love that. 22 years. We’ve what’s what’s one secret? You can lay on us?

Christy Fechser 4:34
Pick your battles. You don’t have to be right about everything. You don’t have to die on every hill. It’s all going to be okay.

Megan Miller 4:44
I love that.

Christy Fechser 4:46
Yeah. Okay, last question. The thing that you do to relax.

Megan Miller 4:52
So back to Mrs. Dobies eighth grade writing class seven years ago when I began this journey of bravely starting to get to know the woman I never took time to ever get to know myself. I didn’t have a lot of language or a lot of toolkit to really understand how to even begin that journey. And I had all of these like gut feelings of just like so anxiety driven, driven. But what really helped me navigate that course, was writing, free writing, pen to paper, just letting it go thoughts out of my head, releasing it. And I will say that every morning, I spend at least five minutes pen to paper freeing the thoughts from my head. And it’s just been on knowingly to me when I began it. It’s just been such a great learning process to get to know myself.

Christy Fechser 5:48
Yeah, that is great. I love that. I actually would highly recommend those who don’t journal to do that. I think that it is very therapeutic. And it helps us to be able to, like I like having a sounding board. I like being able to talk to people and you know, kind of get thoughts out that way. But there’s something else about being able to let the thoughts out of your head without there being a potential judgment on the other side.

Megan Miller 6:13
Yeah, yes. And I will tell your listeners this, this is was interesting for me, I even found when it was just me, writing to me, no one else was reading this, that I would hold back things. Because I would think to myself, I can’t write that, that I don’t want to write that. And I’m thinking to myself, why this is me. For me, to me, no one needs to see this. So if you can’t be honest with yourself, however, could you be honest with anyone else? So that that was really eye opening for me. And then to your point on leveraging others like I just while I always had a great network around me, I never leveraged them or let my mask down because I was fearful to not let people know I didn’t have it all together. Yes. Right. But I didn’t even know how to vocalize these things, Christy because I didn’t even have the language. And my whole life was spent stuffing things down.

Christy Fechser 7:12
Yeah, amen. I seriously, this is why I’m so excited. Because I feel like I’m talking to another version of myself really even your story of all of it, it just like it’s so resonate. So I’m, I’m excited for this. And I love everything that you just said, I, it’s so applicable and true. And I have found that to be true in my own life. And I think that a lot of women actually will will identify with that being afraid to even write it down to be real with yourself. And that, honestly, if you’re afraid to write it down, you need to, and here is a reason why. You have to be able to identify what that is, why it is, and overcome it. Otherwise, you’re always going to be stuck in this process of I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, nobody can know, I can’t even allow myself to recognize it about myself. I’m going to act like it doesn’t even exist.

Megan Miller 8:05
Yeah, that was me for many years. I’m gonna add the it’s fine. I’m fine. We’re fine. And it never was. And, Christy, if I can go back to your point about even the power of writing it down. We are so quick. And I’m speaking for myself here that we want the big thing, right, like we think it’s always the big thing, either quitting the job ending the relationship, moving, dry cleaning, I’m only eating fruits and vegetables, like we think it’s all these big things, right? When we’re not doing these big huge things than then we’re air quote failing, or we’re not doing it right, Not progressing, And when you mentioned about the power of just writing it down and getting real with yourself, that’s huge. That’s huge. And that needs to be celebrated. Because it’s all about the small steps. And once you get brave enough to really get real with yourself, then you have the power to change it.

Christy Fechser 9:06
It’s true. It’s true. There is something about introspection, and I will say that this is true for myself. My biggest moments, my biggest gains, my biggest wins, my biggest like, gigantic leaps forward in my life… All happened when I got honest with myself, and I was spending time with introspection. What does this look like for me? Why do I feel this way? Why did I act that way? How can I do better next time? Asking yourself those questions and wanting to learn and grow from those experiences and from people that you have, you know, encountered. That is really the place where growth actually happens. And in my course that’s I talk about that that the biggest moments of change are going to come in the quiet moments where you’re journaling and having introspection and taking the time to get to know the true self and what you really want out of life.

Megan Miller 9:59
And that’s the things we’re never taught. Yeah, right.

Christy Fechser 10:03
That’s why we’re here.

Megan Miller 10:05
That’s why we’re here, my friend, sharing our stories.

Christy Fechser 10:09
Thank you to the education system for failing in some ways so we could rise up and find our callings in life.

Megan Miller 10:15
Here’s to the journey.

Christy Fechser 10:17
Okay, fabulous. Let’s jump in. So we we’ve talked a little bit about some of Megan’s viewpoints and things like that. But I really want to help every we’re gonna like backtrack here for a minute and talk about how Meghan even got to this point, and kind of what her journey was what I really want to talk today about. And the reason why I invited Megan to come on the show is, I wanted to really get down to the nitty gritty of what it looks like to be addicted to achievement, and always going after something, something something and like she said, never stopping to just be in the moment to find the gratitude for where you’re at. Or to recognize you’re no longer where you actually want to be. You’ve gotten so swept up in this current that is taking you down this river, only to find that the destination is not the one you wanted. So Megan, share just kind of a a synopsis a little quick recap of kind of your life. And what brought you to this moment.

Megan Miller 11:21
Yeah, well, like Christy, I was swept up in that river hard and I never even well, actually, if I’m honest with myself, right back to our honesty point, I think I think I always knew that. But I hated silence, because I hated the gut whispers so I ran from that. But but to tell you a bit of my story. So it’s interesting how all this ties back into our childhood. But yet, we never want to go there because it’s uncomfortable. So my childhood absentee father, single mother, who by the age of 23, had two young kids that she had to care for single handedly hustled her whole life to keep a roof over our head, food on the table. We came from very humble beginnings. I was a chubby kid from Central Pennsylvania, who never really knew my worth and life, I had a speech impediment, I was a C student, no one ever really thought that I would amount to anything myself included. So I came out into the world, I went through life, as we’re all our culture to be the good student, The good daughter, the good employee, so I was whoever you wanted me to be. That would make that would give me the validation that I was worthy, and I was good. And that’s how I was living my entire life. So then I got out into the workforce. And I found the first thing in life that I was good at. And it was this hospitality sales vertical. And I’ll tell you what, Christy, man, I got my first whiff of achievement and that I was good. And I was closing these deals and making these people happy in these big positions. And that groomed me to be addicted to the drug of achievement. And once I got a whiff of that, man, I was on that for 15 years. And it really is like a drug. I can look back now and think, man, I was always looking for the next hit. It was never enough. Man, I would have that email up on my phone, Jones and for the next. Who What deal am I going to close? Who needs me to fix something? I would always say when I was on PTO, I’m going to be on PTO, but call me if you need me. And I would always take the phone on and what I realized, so 15 year journey in this and then I got the job that I was after for 10 years, the C suite job at the corner office, reporting into the president and CEO Oh, the face of the company running sales for this billion dollar hospitality organization. And I had this I can only think of it now like you hear people talk about these divine universal moments where the universe basically slaps you upside the head and is like dummy pay attention. And I had this moment as I’m about to sign the offer letter that says like, how are you living your life? I was $20,000 in debt because I thought the handbag the thing the latest trendiest clothes would fulfill me. Never did. I was in a loveless relationship. I was binge drinking because I hated the silence and I was cut off from the rest of the world. I cut off I cut myself off from my tribe, because I did not want to hear how great their life was. While I was barely hanging on. So I lived my life in mask mode for that entire journey. And if I’m being honest with myself, probably even before that. I always lived my life in mask mode. I’m good. It’s good. We’re good.

Christy Fechser 15:00
The interesting thing about what you just said that I mean, you said a lot of things, and oh my gosh, like in my soul, and I’m like picturing moments in my life and I’m like, been there. Yep. Oh that resonates, I feel you, Yes. But the one thing that you just said that stands out is that you didn’t want to partake in anybody else’s, whatever they were accomplishing whatever it was that they were succeeding at, because you didn’t want to feel like you were failing in your life. But the interesting thing about that is that I bet everybody else surrounded all the people that were surrounding you. Were looking at you. You were the one that had all your crap together, you were the one that was successful, you were the one that they were holding themselves up to and saying, I’m a failure, because I’m not that and you’re saying, I don’t want to see what anybody else is doing. Because I don’t want to feel like a failure. Horrible, vicious cycle that we have, like created in our generation. That is, well, if somebody else looks happy, it must mean X, Y, Z about me.

Megan Miller 16:05
Oh, yeah. Then we make up these stories in our mind that we completely believe to be true. And there hasn’t been any factual information to validate this, but you believe.

Christy Fechser 16:16
Yeah, it’s really interesting. It’s like, you know, when we’re children, we think that these adults in our lives have all their crap together. And so we’re like, yeah, they have all the answers. They know everything, obviously. And then we get to be adults. And we’re like, Well, I don’t have all my crap together. But for some reason, we don’t go back to our childhood self and say, Hey, what that adult said about you, or what that person did to you, or how that person acted towards you, they didn’t have their own crap together. They it wasn’t true. It wasn’t right, you can let go of all of those stories and insecurities and ideas that you created, and be a new you now.

Megan Miller 16:52
And I love that. I love that. And Christy, what you talked about, about the hiding behind a mask, right? I love that. Because I will tell you, I knew people in my corporate career for 15 plus years, and I would work with them every day, and I didn’t know anything about them. All I knew is I would go to you, if I needed X, I’d go to Bob, if I needed accounting support. I go here if I needed operations support, but I never took the time to really get to know who you were. And I always told myself back to your point on the stories, we tell ourselves that I’m busy, man, I’m busy. I’m busy, I got calls back to back, let’s just do this task and get it done. Well, if I would have taken and now I can see this through this seven year journey, right? As I started to feel better about myself, my conversations with others changed. And I started to allow myself to be more vulnerable, and let my mask down. And when I shared with people in that lesson, you don’t have to come out of the gate sharing your deepest, darkest secrets with with the neighbor. But your most trusted tribe, those that you feel comfortable sharing with just slowly, slowly, incrementally, brick by brick, start to share what you’re struggling with, whether it be work email, or whether it be a conversation with your partner, or your child or whatever that looks like. And it’s amazing the vulnerability that they will share, and how you start to build your relationships that are true and real and not based on the facade.

Christy Fechser 18:32
Absolutely. Absolutely. The thing that you said and all of that you talked about the about I’m busy, I’m busy. I’m busy. I’m so busy. I years ago, gosh, probably 12 years ago, I had hired a life coach. I was actually trading, I was doing web development work at that time. And she needed website stuff. And so I was like, Let’s trade. So she was helping me kind of get out of my head out of that place of like holding everything in, right? I’m really good at that. Not having those honest conversations, because I don’t trust a lot of people. And so or I didn’t trust a lot of people. And so it was hard for me to have those open conversations with people even with my husband at that time. And one of the things that she helped me uncover is like this badge that people wear that says I’m busy on it. You know, when you go talk to people and you’re like, how are you doing? And their response has nothing to do with their health, their mindset, their well being anything their responses, I’m so busy. Like what what kind of answer is that? And it was me like that I was wearing that badge of honor. I’m busy. And it was interesting to me to find, you know, she was like, what is it that is triggering this the most for you like because I was that person to like when you were talking about having your cell phone on vacation and like waiting for that next email to come through and who can I help? And what can I do? And what you know, what am I going to sell and all of this stuff, if that was totally me at that point. And I said, you know, I think that one of the biggest triggers for me is having notifications on my computer and on my phone, notifying me that I have an email, because I would jump from task to task to task and I would answer that email. And I always had clients who are like, Oh, my gosh, you’re so fast at answering, I just really appreciate the quick turnaround. And you know, all of that, it’s like, I was known to have a fast response. But when that was doing inside of my head, and to my relationships with the people that I loved the most was devastating. So I want to know, for you, like that was one thing I can give to people, like, turn off your dumb notifications, you don’t need to know when someone so commented on Instagram, or when somebody posted up a new video, or when you have a new email or what fire you need to be putting out, like I have my phone on Do Not Disturb all the time. And the only people that can ring through or text through are my kids and my husband. I will get to everything else when I’m ready.

Megan Miller 21:06
Was that difficult? Or was it…

Christy Fechser 21:10
No, it was hard. It was it was I mean, that was my identity. I was busy. I was purposeful people needed me. So when it was like that shut off moment, it was like, okay, deep breaths. I’m doing this for a reason. And I could see, I think that the only thing that made it easy is that I knew it was for my benefit. And it was going to get me where I wanted to be in my mind, in my like, anxiety level in myself, and also in my relationships. So what what for you because that was obviously something that you’ve dealt with. And it doesn’t have to be the same, like example of just like pulling out of that. But like, what, what is a moment in time or a thing that you were like, I have to stop doing this in order to get what I really want?

Megan Miller 22:02
Well, most recently, and listen, I’ve been on this journey for seven years. So I want everyone to know, it’s easy or may seem easy for Christy and I to be sharing this with you now. But listen, it’s all it’s a journey. It’s a journey. So most recently for me, Christy, as you’re talking, the thing that popped into my head was, I really struggled over COVID With shutting it down. Like I did not know how to end my day. So I felt like I had the foundation in for the morning. And I think we give a lot of hype in, in, in this space of wellness around setting your morning routines. But I felt like at night it was hard. So what I did talk about setting yourself up for success. I’m like, You know what I’m going to do? I am going to set my phone on the what do you call like the screen timer and it shuts everything off on your phone? I’m going to do that at eight o’clock. And every night at eight o’clock, I am going to shut off the world. And I’m going to be with my husband and it’s going to be great. Well, what do you think happened? I ignored all of it. I’d be like no ignore, turn the phone on. And I did this for a couple months. And I was like you know what mag this is not working for you. So then what I did back then is talk about taking your own advice. microsteps. I was like, Okay, well, let me start at 845 You know, maybe 45 I’ll shut everything down. And let me try that for a week. And then the next week, I was like, okay, I can do that. A 30 I’ll shut everything down. And you whatever works for you. But it was it was setting up my phone to to shut things off at a time and it was awareness for me to be like, Okay, I need to be present with my family and allow myself the decompression night time at night that I do in the morning. Yes, I really loved what you said that there’s so much emphasis put on how we wake up in the morning. Nobody ever talks about how we go to bed at night. Yes, I was reading this thing. Now I’m going to jack it up. But the stat was basically about how listen we know going to sleep with our phones are horrible for us because of the blue light because of your thoughts. Anyway, there was this great study and I’m gonna jack it all up. But there was this great study that talked about the power of sleep that you have if you put your phone in the bathroom one hour before you go to bed one hour before you go to bed, put the phone in the bathroom. And not only do you sleep better, you then are forced to get up when the alarm rings. Take away the temptation for this news because the phones in the bathroom so I would tell your audience is investing in a $20 phone charger is one of the best investments you can take in going to bed taking the time for you when you shut down at night and for waking up in the morning. Yeah, yeah, no, I know that that’s true. And I think that for people who have a really hard time regulating not that is a really good first baby step to implement into their lives, because it is really in valuable to let your mind shut down. You know, it’s funny, because it’s like, what did we do before cell phones were invented? Like, how did we go to bed? And how did we get up? Like when we didn’t have social media staring us in the face? You know, like, what? What was that, you know, a lot of times people would just get up and they would start their day. And at nighttime, they might read before they go to bed, you know, like, I don’t know, I read this value. And going back to that, to your point about about what we did before cellphones. I read this study the other day, and it was my it was mind blowing to me. Three minutes, three minutes is all it takes in the morning or night, whenever three minutes of reading the news. Waking up and going right to the email, waking up and checking social feeds three minutes, is all it takes to have a 70% higher chance of having a bad day.

Christy Fechser 26:20
I believe it without a doubt, no question. You are a product of your environment. And we always correlate that to you know, oh, well, that’s the people that were around. That’s the people we spend the most time with. You’re like the five people you spend the most time with, you know, like, that’s been talked about forever, that people don’t ever stop to think, Oh, well, if I get on social media, that’s the five people I’m actually spending my time with his Instagram and Facebook and YouTube and Twitter and whatever Tik Tok are, like, that’s who you’re spending your time with. That’s what’s going into your head. And if you’re not waking up with purpose, and intentionality, then it’s just like all over, it’s you, you are letting your day lead you instead of you leading your day.

Okay, so you had talked about when we had talked before, we had had a conversation before. And just recently, you talked about micro steps. And I love that idea of doing micro steps, because like you said, it is a journey, and anybody that thinks they’re going to get to the 10th rung on the ladder without the first nine, like, let’s get real, because that is not how life works. That is not how growth works. That is not how success works. That is not how relationships work. You have to take it one rung at a time, which is really just like a micro step at a time, it can definitely feel like, like you’re moving so slow, you’re almost moving backwards. But progress is progress and 1% can change the course of your whole life. So what is it that we had talked before about micro steps that can help you focus on what it is that you’re really wanting out of your life? So you talked about this journey of being like this, like incredible sells lady and you’d like you were just like blowing life out of the water only to find that on the inside, there was like this behemoth sized void that you were trying to ignore. And then one day it like hits you upside the head? Well, how do you if you don’t want to end up in that place? How do you find intention? How do you find that focus? What are the things, those micro steps that you do to make sure you’re staying on the path that you actually want to be on?

Megan Miller 28:39
Great question, great question. And I love that because I love gifting this beautiful community that you have here, Christine are building tangible micro steps because that’s the thing, right? Like, when our problems are big, we think the solutions must be big so we don’t know where to go. Because to your point, we’re tired, we’re exhausted, we’re busy. I’m busy. I don’t have time. So you keep going down the lane, you know, you shouldn’t go down. But how can you fix that one micro step at a time. So there’s three micro steps. I want to share with this beautiful community. The first one is making time for you. Making time for you is huge. And I don’t want anyone to disk discount the smallness of these, because it really is the smallest things that we know we should do, that we don’t do that can make the biggest impact in our habits and our behavior and that lays the foundation for the trajectory of your life. So making time for you what does that mean? I don’t mean going to get the massage or the nails done or what the world tells us self care is what I mean is getting up when that alarm rings. That’s the promise you made yourself the night before so wake up with the first promise you made to yourself. Move your body 20 minutes a day. Science has shown that 20 minutes of just moving your body and listen, it doesn’t need to be a peloton workout or a Barry’s Bootcamp where you think you’re gonna fall off the treadmill and hurt yourself. It can be just going out for a walk, lacing up the sneakers going out for a walk in your neighborhood 20 minutes, because science has shown that it’ll help you break through the biggest barrier that we have the demon that lives in our mind. And then the third thing and AI within your your waking time for you that you can do and I have this up on my website, I would love your listeners to download it. It’s the four step journal process that I have used every day for the past seven years. And it’s just on Megan hyphen, miller.com, megan-miller.com. And what I do five minutes in the morning is a great place to start pen to paper use that process. And I do two things in that process. I asked myself, What is one act of kindness I can do for someone else. Because science has shown that that gives us the same dopamine hit that we were getting from the emails so well, and it’ll help your relationships, it could be something as simple as dropping that colleague a note and saying, Hey, you killed it this week. It could be texting that girlfriend that you haven’t spoken to in years and saying, Hey, I’m just thinking of you. It could be writing your partner a love note in the morning on their bedside table that says I love you. It can be something so small, that takes just one minute out of your day that has a huge difference in how you show up. And then the second thing is what is one thing I can do that will make me happy. And then I do it.

So that leads me to my second key which is keeping that promise to you. So in that morning when you were journaling, when you told yourself that you wanted to do X for yourself that can be sitting outside 10 minutes with a book reading it off the screen. That could be taking the photography class at 430 on a Tuesday when your kids have baseball practice, but you want to take the photography class, so you do it. Right like you don’t make up these excuses of pushing yourself on the backburner. I was notorious for that. I would put things in my calendar for me, it could be going to the DMV for a new license, and I would cancel it 98% of the time because someone needed something from me.

So you make time for you key one. Key two, is you keep that promise to yourself. And then key three, you do that consistently. Repetition is the mother of all skill.

All right, we think that it is we want the package we want and we want it now. So we were I want to pop the pill. Listen, I I took every diet pill there was in the world, I bought ad blaster, I took a course on how to make men crave you all of it. And what was on the other end of that was I didn’t lose any way I didn’t have any abs and I was still single, because I wanted the quick, easy fix, right? When it’s not about that it’s these little micro steps that you just do consistently. That’ll have you showing up differently in life and what you look for you find.

Christy Fechser 33:19
Oof, good job. That was amazing. I love it. I was over here, just furiously taking notes, which is so funny. I find myself doing this. And I’m like, I’m literally recording this. Here’s the thing, though, about writing things down. And this goes back to the very first point you were making about what you do to relax is journaling it there’s something about getting it into your ear and out through a pen onto a piece of paper so your eyeballs can see it. You’re hearing it, you’re seeing it you’re experiencing it as you’re writing it. There’s magic in that. That’s the podcast episode, I have to tell you.

Megan Miller 34:02
So as you’re talking I like I went I literally went into my work bag and pulled this out my notepad. So I get these little as you’re talking about the power of writing, it has become my therapy. Whenever I start to feel uncomfortable, whenever that demon in my mind starts to tell me that I suck. This sucks. Nobody wants to hear what I have to say, why would I mess that up? I can never do anything where i i run to this, I run to pen and I read a paper and I just allow myself to just free write. And then I find and I still do this. And this sounds hokey, but I would say listen, try it. We have a difficult time talking to ourselves because we’re never taught how to do that. So what I found is when I’m writing all these things down, I’m actually having like the dialogue in my head, like I would talk to my best friend because we will do more for others than we ever would for ourselves.

Christy Fechser 35:00
It’s true. It’s true. You know, that’s actually a strategy for people who are writing a book. They always it’s you, they tell you, you need to come up with a one person that you’re actually writing the book to. Oh, that’s interesting. That’s interesting. Yeah. So if you can do it from a point of view where I’m doing this to help somebody else, it like ideas flow. But when you’re like, Okay, what do I want to talk about this topic? It’s like, I don’t know. That’s where writer’s block comes in. But that’s interesting. Yeah, it is really interesting. There is an okay, so I’m just going to recap one make time for you to keep your promises to yourself, which Oh, my gosh, that is another podcast episode all in itself. And 3d is doing it consistently. And recognizing that this is a journey, there is progress. This isn’t an immediate gratification, which I know we live in that world and a lot of ways. But that’s not what life actually is that 1%. I mean, if you imagine, if you can put yourself in a plane, and you’re on your way to your destination, right? From the very beginning, your compass is 1%. Off course, how far do you think you’re going to get off course by the time you actually are supposed to get to your destination, your like life years off course, because that one little thing is taking you totally in a different direction than where you’re supposed to be going. Which, if we correlate that in a positive thing. This is the path that you’re on, which is like to destruction.

One little percent is going to get you in a totally radically different location. So it’s all about 1%. Every day, if your focus is just being 1%, better than you were yesterday, honoring yourself 1% More telling yourself something nice, one more time than you did yesterday. It will, over time, magnify into something magnanimous in your life, and you will get to become the person you want to be. And you will get to live the life that you want to live, which is proof in you and what you’re doing right now.

Megan Miller 37:08
You had me at mag mag and I can’t even say it magnanimous, my Animus. I was like, oh, Mike drunk Christy. Yes.

Christy Fechser 37:18
No, I love it. And it’s true. I mean, if you if you Meghan have been able to have this amazing career, and be able to achieve all of these things that the world would say, Wow, you’ve arrived, well done. Only to realize that you’re like, I hate this life. Yes, yes. And to start making those micro steps that you talked about, day after day, after day after day. That is why you are now where you are. And the thing I love most about this whole journey is that you’re at a place in your life now that you’re like, I want to help other people, I’m going to turn around, and I’m going to help other people struggling so that they don’t, it doesn’t have to be a seven year journey for them. It could literally be seven months, like they could like literally change their life this year. If I can just download all the things I’ve gained along the way and all the things I learned and I love that about you, I love that you are that you’ve stopped and recognized. I don’t want this to just be about me. It was about my community. I want this to be about other people. That girl who used to be so locked up inside of herself, not about community only about putting out the fires only about the sales only about the money only about the achievement can stop and transform yourself into somebody radically different, which gives living proof that anybody else can do it.

Megan Miller 38:44
Oh Yes. Yes. Which is why I said hey, listen, I was a c plus student speech impediment, very humble beginnings. And if I can do this, anybody can and Christy if I can expand on that, as you’re talking about this journey and helping other women, which I am all about, as we talked about, there’s so much power in sharing your story. And you’re doing that here, a place where women are sharing their journey, their story, their truth and allowing a safe place to put your mask down. So I and I didn’t even write Isn’t it funny how sometimes you do things and you’re like God that even that wasn’t even strategic, but it all worked out. So in the throughout this journey, as I started to think back to the little girl I was growing up and so never really knowing my place in the world and just so desperate for approval from the outside world. I sat down and I know this sounds hokey, but it was so cathartic. I sat down and I wrote myself a note as the meat today to the younger me. And I oh my god me so emotional, I’m sure and I was like, you know I would just love to share with you that life is even better than you could have ever imagined when you had the courage to live your truth. And you don’t need to go through it alone. And I would love to give that that same story that I told my younger self to this beautiful community that you’ve built her Christy is twofold. One, you’re not in this alone. You are not. And to what is on the other side of this is even better, and bigger and brighter than you could ever imagine.

Christy Fechser 40:35
Excellent ending point. And it’s true, then that’s why we do what we do. Right. So that we can help people see that your life you know, life. I tell people life wasn’t necessarily meant to be easy, but it’s not meant to be miserable. Yeah, supposed to be about a journey. It’s supposed to be about growth and growth oftentimes comes through the trials.

Megan Miller 40:56
I love that. I love that. And you are doing so much good in the world to my friend. I applaud you. Here’s to new friendships. Right? This has been such a great episode. I’m like, Yeah, we’re gonna do 20 to 30 minutes. Yeah, well, we’re a little bit over that. I was gonna say how we could be you can make this 24 hour 24 hour. I’m like, Dude, I think we should have a podcast together. Actually, this is it’s so fun. I have just so enjoyed talking to you today. What I just love the notes, love the conversation, the energy, I hope that the listeners have really been able to get some insights and to be able to put themselves at points along the timeline to be able to say, Okay, well, yep, I identified. That’s where I’m at right now. And there’s hope that I can change my life.

Christy Fechser 41:41
And that’s what I want people to take away from this is that there’s hope. You can change your life, you can make it different. So Megan, thank you from the bottom of my heart for coming on this show and sharing your wisdom and yourself and your story with all of our listeners.

Megan Miller 41:56
It was so great to be here. I love you and I love this beautiful community. Thank you.

Christy Fechser 42:02
Yes. Okay, we will catch up with you later.

Megan Miller 42:05
Okay, bye now.

Christy Fechser 42:06
All right. Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai