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Hosted by journalist, speaker and Certified Meditation teacher, Leslie Zanoff, A Lifetime to Learn is where authentic conversations shed light on how we can live with a deeper sense of purpose.
Together, let’s learn from entrepreneurs, health and wellness experts, thought leaders and luminaries. Don’t forget the change-makers and women who are rewriting the rules.
This podcast is a culmination of Leslie’s desire to equip listeners with practical tools and inspiring stories on how to show up as your best self. You’re not too old and it’s never too late. Life doesn’t come with an instruction manual – only lessons revealed through living. So let’s get going. We’ve got A Lifetime to Learn.
Leslie Zanoff [00:00:00]:
What you think you feel, and what you feel you carry. And what you carry long enough can show up in your health, your relationships, your work and your energy. So when I say managing your thoughts matters, I don't mean that as a motivational concept. I mean it as a physical fact. This is a space where presence meets purpose, where we explore the moments that shape us, from entrepreneurs and change makers to women in leadership. It's about learning out loud, together with honesty and humor, where luminaries with real stories remind us how to live by our own rules. Because progress doesn't come from having all the answers. It comes from staying open.
Leslie Zanoff [00:00:46]:
And we've got a lifetime to learn. I'm your host, Leslie Zanoff. Let's get started. Hi friends. Welcome back to A Lifetime to Learn. So today is a little different. If you've been listening for a while, you know that most episodes I sit down with someone whose story, work or perspective I find fascinating, and we just talk. I really love those conversations.
Leslie Zanoff [00:01:12]:
I learn something every single time. But today it's just me. And I've been meaning to do this for a while. A solo episode, just me, you, and some things that I've been thinking about that I want to share. There's so much content floating around about mental health awareness. It's telling you to take a walk, download an app, practice self-care. And those things matter. I'm not dismissing them.
Leslie Zanoff [00:01:38]:
But I want to share something else with you today. I want to talk about your mind. Not mental health as a diagnosis or a label, but the actual daily experience of living inside your own head. Because here's something I've learned both from my own life and teaching meditation and mindfulness, and it doesn't get said nearly enough. Most of us have never been taught what to do with our thoughts. And for many people, it's why they avoid meditation altogether. We go to school for years. We learn math, history, how to write a paper.
Leslie Zanoff [00:02:14]:
But nobody sits us down and says, you are going to have 60 to 80,000 thoughts today and 90 percent of them will be the same ones that you had yesterday. And a lot of them won't be kind. And here's what you do when that happens. We just figure it out, or we don't. And I didn't for a long time. I want to tell you a little bit about how I got here because I haven't shared this enough. I spent over 20 years as a journalist. I co-founded a regional magazine in Northwest Arkansas in 2008, 3W Magazine, and I ran it with my business partner for 16 years.
Leslie Zanoff [00:02:53]:
I was a publisher, entrepreneur, mom, wife. I was going and doing and achieving which, if you're anything like me, felt completely normal. It felt like success. But in 2021, I got a diagnosis that stopped me in my tracks. I was diagnosed with LCIS, lobular carcinoma in situ, which indicates about a 12 times greater risk of developing breast cancer. That, along with my family history and other factors, left me with an 80 percent risk for breast cancer. So after watching waiting Multiple biopsies and MRIs, in 2023, I had a double mastectomy with reconstruction. At about the same time,
Leslie Zanoff [00:03:38]:
I was in the process of selling my business, 3W Magazine of 16 years back to my business partner. I do not recommend making two major life changes at once, by the way. I mean, as if we can help it. But it's not for the faint of heart. I give it 0 out of 5 stars. But it was really during that recovery period after my surgery that I was physically forced to slow down. I had no choice. And what happened in that stillness was something that I didn't expect.
Leslie Zanoff [00:04:11]:
I started to understand, really understand how important the thoughts that I was allowing into my mind were. I did not allow negative talk around me or to me while my body healed. I have to give my mom credit. She's always been a big advocate of speaking health over yourself, and I'm really thankful for that. And because I was intentional, maybe for the first time in my life, about who and what I let in, it changed things. And it was then that I truly understood what I had been studying and researching with meditation. But I wasn't fully living. Healing is not just physical;
Leslie Zanoff [00:04:54]:
it's mental and emotional, too. And it all begins with your thoughts. That experience is why I do this work, why I became a certified meditation teacher, why I speak about mindful leadership. It's why I created Strategic Stillness, my six-week workshop for women. And honestly, why I started this podcast. Because A Lifetime to Learn isn't just a name, it's a philosophy. We're always in process. We are always becoming.
Leslie Zanoff [00:05:23]:
And the most important thing we can learn, in my opinion, is, is how to work with our minds instead of against them. Okay, so let me give you some context that I think will shift how you see your own mental experience. We have 60 to 80,000 thoughts a day. And that's not a motivational quote. That is neuroscience. Every 1.2 seconds, your mind is jumping to a new thought. And here's the part that really gets me. 90 percent of those thoughts are repetitive, according to Stanford University and the National Science Foundation.
Leslie Zanoff [00:05:56]:
You are largely thinking the same thoughts today that you thought yesterday and probably the day before. So if your default thoughts are anxious, self-critical, or stuck in the past, you are quite literally living in a loop. And here's another piece of research that shocked me when I first encountered it. Harvard researchers studied thousands of people and found that almost half the time, about 47 percent, our minds are not focused on what we're actually doing. Nearly half. You could be in a conversation, eating a meal, sitting in a meeting, and your mind has already left the building. And what were people thinking about instead? The past, the future? Things that worried them? Things they wished were different? Researchers concluded that a wandering mind is an unhappy mind.
Leslie Zanoff [00:06:47]:
Not really because life is hard, but because we are so rarely here for it. Now, to be fair, mind wandering isn't always the enemy. Research does show that it plays a role in creativity and problem solving. I know that to be true for myself. It's why your best ideas sometimes come in the shower or when you're on a walk. But the Harvard study also found that when our minds wander towards worry, regret, anxiety, which is most of the time, that's when it costs us. The content of the wandering mind matters. So the goal isn't to never let your mind wander,
Leslie Zanoff [00:07:23]:
it's to notice when it's wandering somewhere that isn't serving you, and to gently bring it back. Now, here's the other piece of this. Our brains are wired for negativity. This is not a character flaw. This is evolution. Our ancestors needed to scan for threats to survive. It's Is that a predator or a tree blowing in the wind? Are they going to hurt me or not? And that people who were more attuned to danger survived. And they also passed on their genes to us.
Leslie Zanoff [00:07:53]:
The problem is that our nervous systems haven't caught up with our modern lives. We're no longer being chased by tigers, but our brains don't always know that. So we overestimate danger and underestimate possibility constantly. We remember the negative feedback and forget the 10 compliments. We lie awake at 3am replaying the conversation that went sideways. Okay, maybe it's that in midlife hormones, but that's for another conversation. We walk into a meeting already bracing for something to go wrong. And that's not a weakness,
Leslie Zanoff [00:08:27]:
that's wiring. Here's what I want you to take away: Wiring can change. Something I say a lot, and I mean it literally - your body hears everything that your mind thinks. This is not a metaphor. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine published a study in the journal Nature finding that the mind body connection is literally built into the structure of the brain. That the parts of your brain controlling movement are directly wired into the networks that that regulate your heart rate, your blood pressure and your breathing.
Leslie Zanoff [00:09:03]:
Your thoughts and your body are not separate systems, they are one. And the science behind how your mental state affects your immune system has shown that chronic stress, negative thinking and suppressed emotions can directly impact immune function, slow healing and over time contribute to serious physical conditions. I saw this play out in my own life for years before I fully understood what was happening. During the most stressful seasons of owning the magazine, I kept getting ear infections, repeat ear infections, and it took me a while to connect the dots, but that's exactly what research describes. My body was responding to what my mind was carrying. It wasn't a coincidence, it was really a message. And I just didn't know how to listen yet.
Leslie Zanoff [00:09:55]:
So in other words, what you think you feel, what you feel you carry, and what you carry long enough can show up in your health, your relationships, your work, and your energy. So when I say managing your thoughts matters, I don't mean that as a motivational concept, I mean it as a physical fact. And here's the part that I find most helpful. You do not have to change every thought, you just have to learn to notice them. Because the moment you realize that you're having a thought rather than being the thought, you get a little space. And in that space you get a choice. And that choice is everything. Okay, I want to introduce you to someone, and her name is Pam.
Leslie Zanoff [00:10:41]:
Pam the perfectionist. Pam lives in my head. She works in what I call the risk aversion department, and she does not coordinate well with the fulfillment department. Pam is the voice that says, I'm not ready. It has to be perfect. Before I put this out into the world, someone is going to think it's not good enough. And by someone, she usually means me. Now, I might be the only person who names her inner critic, but I promise you, I'm not the only person that has one.
Leslie Zanoff [00:11:14]:
We all have a voice of self-doubt. And for some of us it shows up around work. For others, it's around our appearance or parenting or big dreams that we've stopped letting ourselves have. It's background noise and most of us don't talk about it because it seems like everyone else has it together. Everyone else is confident. Everyone else doesn't have an inner Pam. They do. And here's what I've learned about the inner critic.
Leslie Zanoff [00:11:40]:
You don't have to dig deep to find some childhood wounds. You don't have to banish your voice entirely. But what you do have to do is learn to hear the voice without taking direction from it. I mean, here's the thing. The inner critic isn't always wrong. Sometimes it's pointing at something real. But it's using fear as a compass. And fear is a terrible navigator.
Leslie Zanoff [00:12:03]:
I completed a coaching training through Tara Mohr's programs. She wrote the book Playing Big and developed the concept for the inner mentor. And her framework is something that I come back to constantly in my own work and in what I teach. The inner mentor is the wisest, most grounded version of you. She uses values as her compass, not fear. And she sounds very different from your inner critic. Part of the work I do is helping people learn to tell those two voices apart, to hear the critic acknowledge it, and then consciously choose to listen to the mentor instead.
Leslie Zanoff [00:12:38]:
Now, I don't want to send you away from this episode with just ideas. I want to give you tools, because that's the whole point. A Lifetime to Learn means actually applying it, right? So here are three things that you can do today that come directly from what I teach. Number one, notice the thought. The most important thought that you might ever have is, I'm having a thought. That's it. Before you had that thought, you might have believed that you were your thoughts, but you're not. Something I learned while getting certified to teach meditation is that you are the thinker of your thoughts, and the thinker gets to choose.
Leslie Zanoff [00:13:19]:
So today, just once, catch yourself in that thought that isn't serving you. Don't judge it. Don't spiral about having a negative thought. Just notice it and say to yourself, oh, I'm having that thought again. That tiny moment of awareness is where everything starts. Number two, send it down the stream. This is one of my favorite practices, and I use it all the time. When a negative thought enters my mind, I visualize it, see it clearly, and then picture placing it on a leaf and watching it float down the stream away from you.
Leslie Zanoff [00:13:54]:
Or send it out into the ocean, watching it wash away. And then this part matters. Think of three things that are true and good right now. Not toxic positivity, not pretending everything is just fine. Just redirecting your attention, intentionally, toward what is actually true and actually good in this moment. If you sent your negative thought out into the ocean, maybe picture the ocean bringing it back to you with a good thought in return. Your brain will follow where you point it, so point it somewhere worth going. And number three, try five minutes of stillness.
Leslie Zanoff [00:14:32]:
Not a full meditation practice. Not sitting cross-legged on a mat if that's not your thing. Just five minutes. Sit somewhere comfortably, breathe slowly, and let your mind do whatever it does without judging it. It helps to focus on your breath if you're distracted by your thoughts. But research from UC San Francisco found that just five minutes of meditation a day for eight weeks can actually change your nervous system. Five minutes. That is less time than you spend looking for your keys in the morning or scrolling on your phone.
Leslie Zanoff [00:15:08]:
Stillness is not a luxury, it's not a weakness. It's a strategy. And probably one of the most underused strategies that we have. So that's what I've got for you today. This is what I do. This is some of what I teach and it is genuinely what I believe, that your mind is not the enemy. It's just untrained and like anything, it responds to practice. If this resonated with you, I'd love for you to share this episode with a friend who needs to hear it.
Leslie Zanoff [00:15:39]:
Leave a review if you feel moved to it helps people find me. And before I go, I want to tell you about two ways that we can work together beyond this episode. Because I don't want this to just be a good listen, I want it to be a turning point. The first is Strategic Stillness, my six-week workshop designed specifically for women. I teach the basics of how to meditate. We work through the inner critic. We practice visualization. We talk about what's actually running in the background of your life with your thoughts and what to do about it.
Leslie Zanoff [00:16:14]:
It's one of my favorite things I do. And the women who come through the program leave different. Not because I change them, but because they finally gave themselves the space to change. And if that sounds like something you need right now, reach out to me directly. You can find me at lesliezanoff.com or send me a message on Instagram or LinkedIn. I'd love to have you. The second is for those of you who lead teams, work in HR, or are thinking, wow, my people need to hear this. I speak to organizations and groups about mindful leadership, thought management, and how to build a culture where people actually show up, present focused and resilient.
Leslie Zanoff [00:16:55]:
I offer keynotes and half day workshops, and I promise you it's not your typical corporate wellness training. If you want to bring this work into your organization, let's talk. Again, lesliezanoff.com is the best place to find me. And if you just needed someone to tell you today that what you're feeling is normal, that you're not alone and you are more capable than your loudest thoughts tell you. I hope this was it. Thank you so much for spending your time with me. I don't take it lightly and I'll see you next time. Thanks for being here on A Lifetime to Learn.
Leslie Zanoff [00:17:31]:
If today's episode inspired you or sparked a new thought, please share it with someone who might need it too. And if you haven't yet, be sure to subscribe to get notifications when we launch new episodes. I've got conversations with extreme extraordinary people lined up and I can't wait for you to listen. For more information on how to work with me, visit lesliezanoff.com it's where I share resources to help you lead with presence and live with intention. Because remember, we're not here to have it all figured out. We're here to keep showing up with open hearts and open minds because we've got a lifetime to learn. Until next time, friends. Be well.