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We cover topics on physical and mental healing, health, happiness, growing wealth and living wise in a world that often sabotages you.
From Health to Wealth with topics covering Cradle to Grave. We got you.
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Hi, everybody. Welcome back to Healthy, Happy, Wise, Wealthy season two.
So I'm excited for season two. And we have with us today Lori
Rogers with Positive Activity. Welcome,
Lori. Thank you. Thanks so much, Mary.
Yeah, I'm real excited to have you on here as we just start out this
new season. So Lori has done many things
in her life, but positiveactivity.net, you said in
2017, you started this.
And I'm just gonna jump into. I was looking through your website and so
you have these six guiding principles of positive activity. So.
And I do. And one of the things I'm gonna say this too with, with
the podcast is like, I feel like I love having people
on that. Like, you're not just saying these things. You've lived through some things,
so you know what I mean?
And, you know, you've lived some life for sure.
So. And we'll get into that a little bit later.
Some very interesting stuff. So, six guiding principles of positive
activity. So the number one was change your mindset
to change your life. Yes. Tell me about
that. Well, once I learned that
changing my words, which and my
thoughts, which become my beliefs, once I
could shift those and change those, I could change my
subconscious mind. I could change the way what my
subconscious mind was searching for me. Your subconscious,
which I didn't even know this back in 2012. This is what I learned,
these concepts, which I was a little annoyed that I didn't know it as a
younger person, but that's beside the point. So
once I learned that, we have this amazing tool, our
mind, our subconscious mind, that is a faithful friend
and wants to match to us everything that we want and
we desire and listens to us every day. So it
listens to everything we say, negative, positive,
neutral. It doesn't judge us. It just says, oh, she,
you know, doesn't think she's going to get any sales today. Or, oh, she doesn't
think she's going to be able to pay her bills today, well, okay, I'm going
to search for that. I'm going to match to that. You know what I'm saying?
So once I learned that, I learned I needed to change
my negative self talk, I needed to change the way I was approaching
life. My business, my family, my children.
And I could, I could, I guess,
engrave, I would use the word engrave new thoughts, new
beliefs into my subconscious. And that in
turn changes your life. At least for me it did.
Because your subconscious brain wants to please you
so, so much so it's going to match to you what you Think
about all the time what you say all the time. Or
you know, people would say, my people would tell my son who was going
into broadcasting. Oh, Craig. Oh, Cam, that's so hard. That
broadcasting career is so hard. It's. So I said, cam,
that's their belief. That's. That doesn't have to be yours. So you
write down the opposite on a post it note and you put that on your
computer every day and you say, opportunities are
here for me always. Having the career I want is.
Is. Is here for me always. And don't let other
people's beliefs become yours. Yeah,
that's what it's about. It's just about changing your
mind. And we all have the power to do it. It's like, oh my gosh,
we have this superpower to, to do this. And I wanted everyone to know
about it. So once I learned these concepts, it's like, oh my gosh, I gotta
teach this. This is crazy that I didn't know this. So that's
about. Yeah. And I think it just. There's something about it. Like we're. We.
Because we're always listening to ourselves. We don't even think about the
fact that there is something going on in our brain that's talking to us. Like
our brain is. We don't it become. We're not even self aware
of it. This thing that happens constantly. So
not aware at all.
And it's such that. Don't you think it's like that's really one of the. When
you talk about positive thinking, you know, it really is like
it's almost becoming self aware of what it is that's
going down in your brain. And I've. I've had
conversations with people because, you know, I've lived through some, some things that are pretty
traumatic. And so when you're talking about things
in the real world that are real, like this is really going down
and this is really bad. To somehow reframe it, to
be reframing it into something
that's positive in your brain can be, can be
a superhero challenge. Exactly.
And I think the key point there also is when we hit those
challenges in life, which I've had many and will continue to have
them, we don't shove it down. We
don't give it its due time. We give those emotions of
challenge and fear and worry and doubt their place.
And we let, we process them. We. We let them flow
through us. We. We let it happen the way it needs to happen.
Knowing even though, even though this challenge is happening today,
I'm going to do my best to stay as light as I can.
And tomorrow may take a day, it may take two weeks, it may take three
days. But I'm going to let this energy do its thing,
flow through me and. And be released. And sometimes we
need help with that, sometimes we don't. Sometimes it can be released, you know,
on our own. But you honor every emotion and you
don't want to shove them down because that's when they get sick and
we don't want that. Yeah. So it's. And it's
also when you talked about reframing them. I love that,
like, that thought process of reframing it, because you're looking
at it as, okay, maybe a day, maybe a week, maybe a month,
two months from now you'll say, oh,
now I see why that happened for me, not to me.
You know, now I see why I lost, you know, being the top
producer for that client. Now I see what was coming
down the line. Because if I. That happens to. That
happened to me. And I was devastated when we lost one of our clients. And
then six months later we garnered a new one
that was like 10 times larger. I'm like, oh, okay, that's
why it happened. But I didn't know that at the time. You're upset, you're
mad, you're worried, you're fearful. Okay, all right, all right. So,
you know, you move on and you do what you need to do to get
rid of. To release that and process that. And then
six months later, I'm like, oh, that's why that happened for me.
So, yeah, something else good was coming. Yes.
And we can't see it at the time because when you're in the storm, you
just don't know and you don't see it. No, no. And I
think personally, the difference between
positive, positive mindset and toxic positive
mindset is are you willing to feel your emotions?
Because if you're. Because if you're just like, put
that thought away. That's. That's negative thought. No, negative.
That's. That's not human. Or, you know, like, we're only accept
this emotion of happiness. We're not accepting any others.
That's when. That's when all of a sudden you get. Because I've been in
sales like you are and done a lot of different ones, and then you get
these managers who are just so mean
and not. And the very opposite of positive as
they are trying to teach positivity. So
in my opinion, is because you still gotta be human.
Yes. Thank God we are all humans. And that's.
Right. You know, our. Our emotions are our guidance system.
So. Right. God gave us that. Creation gave us that universe
gave us that. Whatever you want to call it, gave us that. So let's use
it wisely and use it as our barometer
and you know where we're going to go with it. Absolutely. Yeah.
Yeah. I didn't even know what toxic positivity was until, like, six
months ago. Someone asked me that. I'm like, I had to look it up. I'm
like, what is that? Like. Oh, okay. No, no, no. That's not what
we're talking about here. Yeah, no, yeah, well. And I could sense,
you know, I could sense when I was. When I was just, you know, initially
looking through your stuff that this is, you know, that's
not what you were. So. But yeah, it's. It's. And that
that's how we got to, like, delineate it. It's like we're not talking about,
don't feel anything. Anything bad that happens to you is because
you wanted it to happen because of your mind. And I've heard people say that
that's kind of a quote versus this
is. You're dealing with life, which is really, really tough. And you're going through some
things that are really tough, but instead of playing
that spinning cycle in your head about how bad it is and how bad it's
going to be, you stop it and you go,
maybe it'll turn out better than I think. And
then start linking those emotions that are so intelligent
to the outcome, which is. I've been
really. I've been really. I'm in the middle of focusing on that. The thing that
has not arrived yet that I'm feeling into, you know,
so I'm. I'm living it currently, today. Yeah.
All right. So you're allowing. I love it. So. Yes. Yeah.
So the. The second part of this expectation
versus patience. Was that the second part? Well, I would say
expectation and patience. So the
concept there is we have goals,
intentions, things we want to
accomplish, things we want in our life. So they're over here
in our future, and we've asked, we've written it
down, we've put it in our journal. We've done whatever it's up on our vision
board. We know our goals, we know what they are. So we
stop saying, I want this, and we
start saying, I am this. So I am
five new clients this month. I am
garnering, you know, 20,000 in commission this month. I am,
you know, whatever the statement is. So when you say, I am.
You're putting yourself in right here, right now. It's in.
It's. It's with me. But here's the thing. It may not be in
your hands yet. It may not be part of your experience yet.
So there's a gestation period. A gestation period between
the intention, the writing it down, the knowing that you
want it, the universe knows you want it and getting it.
So we have to stay patient with. It's. It's like being
pregnant. You know? You know you're pregnant, but you're not going to rush it. You
don't get mad that it takes nine months. You don't get mad. You're like, oh,
I'm out of here. I'm not doing this anymore. You don't do that. You know
that it's taking time. So in that buffer
of time between knowing what you
want and having it, can you be patient with
excited expectation of it coming? So within that
buffer of time, can you feel the emotion of having it?
Can you sit five minutes every day and meditate and think
about having that and how that's going to feel when you do? Because
most things we want, I would say all things we want,
we want them because we think it's going to make us feel better.
So feel better today for five minutes and
visualize it. See it happening. Feel
how great you're going to feel when you get that $20,000 commission check. Like,
whatever it happens to be be, feel it now, because you may
not have it now, but you can feel it within the next few minutes.
Right? I. I take people through an experiment of closing their
eyes and imagining. I go through this whole process of taking
a lemon, rolling it between your hands, putting it down on a
cutting board, slicing it open. The juices are flowing
out. You squeeze it, you take and you
take a taste. And as you visualize and people go through that process, they
start salivating and they feel like they're really having the
lemon. Because your body doesn't know the difference. Thank God your brain
doesn't know the difference between something real or
imagined. How cool is that? Like, we have another superpower
so we can show our brain. This is what it's going to look like. This
is what it's going to feel like. I'm so excited. And your brain's like, oh,
yeah, okay, cool. Yeah. So that's kind of cool.
That is. It is so cool. And I love what you're talking
about it, because I'm like, oh, this is me living this today. And been the
Last month or so as I. Or last several months as I'm like,
trying to just get more aligned in my life with
things I can't talk about on podcast, but
for different reasons, but just that alignment with work,
with. With vision, with just
finances, with family, with every part of it and, like, what.
What I would want to have. I love how you
use that word alignment, because
when you think about it, you're lining up
with the energy of having what you want.
So that's what you're doing. When you're visualizing and feeling it,
you're aligning with it. So I love that you use that word. That's good
word. Yeah. Yeah. That was my word of the year. We did a session a
couple. A couple weeks back with some people. I'm like, what's your
word? Yes. Yeah. And I'm like,
alignment needs to be my word for sure. So thanks for that.
Okay, so the third one that you have on here, and I. This is. This
was fascinating to me. I love it. And I don't know that anyone's heard of
it. Festin in lente. Is that. Am I saying it right?
Yes. So it means
make haste slowly. So it's. It's
just this concept of being present, really.
So you're going through your day and you're doing your thing.
Can you stop every five, ten, I don't know, put an alarm on your phone
an hour, every 30 minutes and just stop and be
present and be aware and,
you know, maybe shut off the computer. Not shut it off,
flap down the computer and just be aware and breathe for a few minutes.
And just so I know we're all going through our days and we're.
We're so busy and we're rushing and rushing and rushing. Take
that time to stop and
pause. Even it's for 30 minutes, seconds,
doesn't matter. Just stop and pause and breathe and
get your brain focused on one thing, your breath,
for 30 seconds or a minute. And it helps your
brain sort of declutter from that
ADHD of social media, of
our emails, of our text messages, of our, you know, voicemails, of
everything bombarding us. Let the brains
and just focus on one thing for 30 seconds or a minute,
if you can. I know when I started doing it and sitting and breathing and
listening to my breath, I could do 30 seconds at a time and I was
out. And then I just increased it a little bit each day.
Yeah, I love it makes. It does remind me
of yoga. And I remember back when I've been doing it,
I'm getting back into It. But when I first started years ago and
I kind of have started and stopped, but like when you're going through something
that's really stressful, it's easier to go do boxing
and go hit something. And
that felt better then. And. But the thought of like
staying in stillness where you just have to be still and hold, it
was awful, you know, And I think when
you're going, if you, if. Well, and this is like, you know, like the being
trauma informed kind of thing. So like you've been through the. Some trauma
and you don't want to like just you got to move. Like you got to
move and so to get your body out of flight or fight,
then you got to be still. But I. In the,
in just the general workplace, I think we're in fight and fight
or flight a lot. We are. So,
you know, in one way or the other, it's just, it can be. Not all
workplaces are chaotic, but certainly an entrepreneur, sales
and there's a million other things. Like you could
be working at a, at a fast food restaurant and be completely stressed, you know,
so that. I love that. That just the coming back
to a moment of stillness. And
that's so, it's so, it's so simple and so brilliant.
So what I tell people to do and I hate. At workshops, I hand out
lip balm that has our logo on it. And I say every
time you put that lip balm on your lips, I want you to take
that 30 seconds, that 20 seconds and just breathe and
just focus on the feeling, focus on the balm, focus on your lip. Just to
give your brain one thing to focus on. So that's,
that's a tip or trick too. So. Or every time think about
like something you do or every time you take a sip of water or take
a sip from your coffee or whatever, whatever resonates
with the person. Yeah, that's. I think that's
brilliant. And other guests I've had on have said really the same thing.
So we're onto it, right? We're on, we're on to the thing that's gonna
help us. So the. Okay, what are we on for? The
fourth thing is just do your best. Yeah. So.
Oh my gosh. That came from a book called the Four Agreements,
which I highly recommend. It's a cute little stocking
stuffer sized book. And the Four agreements are.
Oh my gosh. No, I'm spacing them. But don't talk badly about yourself
or others. Like, don't gossip,
don't make assumptions, always call and get the
answers to questions like don't assume what's going on. Right. Always
find out or think the best of things. Right.
And then there's. There's two more. There's one more. Now I can't think of what
it is, but the book is sitting right there. I can't. But anyway, the last
one is. The fourth one is always do
your best. So do the best you can
with those three agreements. And if you
fall off that, you know the train. So you fall off, you get back on
the next day. But give yourself some grace. But always try to do your best
with those. Yes. So it's not talking badly about yourself and others.
Don't make assumptions. What was the third? Maybe someone knows and they'll pop.
The third one is never forget number three. Ah,
exactly. Now I can't remember.
I. I've heard of that book too. So now we'll have to.
We'll put it in the show notes. Go check the show notes. Go get a
copy of the book. That's. That's awesome. I love that.
And you know, I do think that's the. That goes back to. Really the first
one too is your mindset is just some gentleness with yourself
because you're a human. So perfection isn't the goal because
perfection is unattainable in many ways. No, it's not about
perfection at all. It's. I think it's more about excellence. Just
excellence. Character. Excellence of communication,
excellence of back and forth. But that doesn't mean perfection
because I don't even know what that is, honestly. But tell you an interesting
story. We. A couple months ago, I got an email. One of our
suppliers was emailing me. She's the customer. She heads up the
customer service organization. And her emails were just
so snarky and wow, wow, where's this art? You know, like
just like not nice and just mean. Kind of mean toned.
So I'm like, yeah, what is happening? You know, So I would just respond.
And I said, you know what? I'm going to call her. Why is she being
so. So I called her and said, you know, Debbie, you know, I'm not sure
what you need. What did you need with this order? So as the conversation went
on, she was telling me that her husband was going through
colon cancer and how she was about that. So you
don't want to make assumptions that this woman hated me and didn't
want to work with me or whatever. And look where I would have gone with
that. Where in reality, you just don't know what someone
else is going through. Yeah, so that's a great
example. That comes up a lot. These things come up a lot. So instead
of me, you know, going back at her and being mean
back to her, I didn't do that at all. So that's being your
best. That's being your best. Now does that happen all the time? No.
Sometimes I lose my patience and then I have to call the person, say I'm
so sorry, I just lost my patience. But you just
try to do your best. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. That's a great
example. Okay, so we're doing the six principles of positive activity.
So the number five
then is the power of positive thinking. So
I guess what I would say here is when your
mind. And you'll see the benefits on our main page too.
So when your mind is in a more optimistic,
positive, joyful state up here
as best it can be, there are all these benefits that have been
scientifically researched. So things like on
average, when your brain is more optimistic and positive, you sell
on average 37% more. You're
31% more productive, you're more resistant to, to
illness. You are open and
you more easily accept creative ideas coming into your
brain. You can actually hear them and maybe apply
them or look into them. You
are all, all the children's great. They studied children. All
of their grade scores were higher. Sat, act,
those kinds of, those kinds of standardized testing or higher.
Doctors are 19 more accurate
in their diagnoses when their brains are more
optimistic. So it's like check in with your doctor before you go for
a problem saying how you feeling today? But you know, whatever.
And I find that one fascinating. And they're all listed there on my,
on our website. I forget, you know, there's many others, but once
I learned about the power of this, you know, that
we're building, what we're really doing is teaching people the practices
they need to keep their vibration, their
happiness level, their resilience. Call it your resilience
higher. So when challenges do come up, because
they are going to, especially when you're an entrepreneur or you're a mom,
a wife, whatever, it's going to a manager,
it's going to come up. So you might get bumped down a few
notches that day, that incident, that hour, whatever.
But because you built up this resilience, you,
it's easier for you to work through these emotions,
pass these emotions, let them flow through you
and, and get back out of that. You're not in the ditch as much
anymore. Yeah. So that's the power of it
and it's been scientifically proven. So I say why not do it?
Why not do it? How do you think that relates to the
mindset change? Like how. How is it different? How does it relate? Like
with the number one? It's the same.
I would say it's the same because you're changing.
You know, shifting your mindset is changing your life and you're
changing your life because all of
you're not. Maybe you're not so depressed anymore.
Maybe you're. Or if you do get depressed about something, you
get anxious about something or worried about, you're able to get
back out of it faster. Yeah. So it's not like
it's the. These emotions are still going to come up,
but you're able to deal with them better. So it goes hand in hand. Goes
hand in hand. The honest dealing with emotion
and then moving it and reframing it
into something that feels positive. I love that
letter. Creativity lead is the last
one. Or lead with creativity.
This is. So one of the benefits of
living with a more optimistic and positive mind
is you are more open to allowing
these creative ideas to come in. For instance,
when you have challenges or issues that come up in business. And we just had
one a couple weeks ago where our client received their. We
also have a swag business called Rogers Marketing. So she received 400
jackets. They were all mis-sized.
She hated them. The arms were too tight. She wanted to return them
all. So at first I'm like, you know, that
gut wrenching fear and worry and anxiety and over,
you know, mainly over money because we were going to lose money on the order
that that money thing always comes in. Right, right.
So I said, okay. So I think I went out for a walk,
came back in, talked to Neil about it. I'm like, what are you gonna do
about this? So I called my client on the phone. God forbid, right. I
called her and I said, okay, let's work this through. What are the issues? What's
happening? What will resolve this for you? Like, okay,
then, you know, then Neil and I talked about a Lamar. I said, I'm just
calling the jacket vendor. Maybe there were something wrong with these
jackets in the first place. So we did that and
we ended up getting a full credit from the jacket vendor on the
jackets. And she took.
I asked her to take 25% of the cost
because they did get samples and they liked them at the time. She's like, yes,
we're willing to take that. Then the only money we lost was on the
embroidery of the. Of the garments, which was around $5,000.
So what, so what I mean is,
instead of just being mad and angry and fighting back. And fighting back.
No, no, no, you've got to buy these jackets. No, you know, whatever. We.
I just sat and waited and listened and just
went for a walk. Let these negative emotions, you
know, flow through me. And then I was more, I
was more open to hearing the, the
creative ways the universe was sending me ideas to fix this.
Right. We fixed it. We fixed it. So. And we still have the
client out of it and they appreciated it. So. Yeah,
that's just one example. Yeah. I love that
so much. I love it so much. And I want to because I, because
I've seen the. We'll call it toxic positivity in
play in my, in workplaces that I've been in. And the
difference between what you just described, where you're taking it in,
this is horrifying. If you had to, you know, hit
with the whole cost. And so then you kind of let the
shock and negativity roll through you first. Like you
allow it. It's shocking, it's negative, it's
like terrifying. And then, so you first, you feel it,
you let it flow through in a way that's not being thrown at
someone. And then when you're in a more, you know,
when you let that in, then you go in and deal with it, basically.
Yeah. Find all the different things that maybe we
can, we can work together with people to not have
it be as awful as it feels like it's going to be. Right.
So that's so great. Yeah.
So you also have a three minute
reset. Oh, yes. So if you go to our website,
positiveactivity.net there's a free
download and. Well, there's many free downloads, but one of
them is a three minute reset.
So if you, if you're just feeling like crap and the day you're a little
snarky, you get out of bed in the wrong whatever, or your kid was
mean or your child is having a bed. You know, we have a special needs
child with autism and if he's having a bad day, my mom
has a bad mom feels that. And it's not great for me
either. So there are three minute resets on there that,
that I learned that I wanted people to say just take three minutes and
go dance for three minutes in your kitchen. Go out in nature and just put
your, if you can put your bare feet in the ground.
On the ground, on the grass, on the dirt, and there's many other
in there, you Know, grab your book that you're reading and read your book journal
about it. Call a friend. That makes you laugh. That's my. One of my
favorites. It's just. Or I put on an episode of Schitt's Creek. I'm like, oh,
my God, that's more than three minutes. But there's. Yes, the funniest
show. And it is. Sorry that Catherine o' Hara passed
away. That makes me, you know, at God lover. And
so there's a whole list of things there of just
ways just to give your. Give your. You can give yourself three minutes to just
like, reset. Yeah. And reset.
Yeah. I. I was, you know, I was laughing at that because I had. I
did a. I did an episode in a talk actually, about how
to get rid of nerves when you're. When you're doing public speaking and I
have an actor and I'm like, when you, you know, like
that. The thing was that my number one thing was like, be
goofy. Yeah. So if you're
rehearsing your speech and it. That's because it tied in with what
you're saying, like, your nervous system will get. Will tie
your speech in with this. With this essence of silliness.
And you can't be happy and joyful and silly and
goofy. Right. And scared.
Right The book E Squared. I don't know if
you. If you have heard of that book E Squared, like the letter E
Squared. And I listened to a. An
interview of the author, and she's so funny because she makes it
fun. She makes mindset and she
makes manifesting and she makes. It's just fun and
goofy and. Exactly to what you just said. So you're
intrigued and you're entertained because it's not a
dry, boring subject. Right. It's. It's like this cool
thing that you can all learn to do that's free. It's
easy. I don't know that it's easy, but it's simple. It's free. It's
simple. The hard part, I guess I would have to say, is
carving. Is everyone understanding they're worthy of
20 minutes a day for themselves to do these things.
So that's. Yeah. If I have. Well. And, you know, you show
up. You show up better in everything when you're. When you've taken
some time, internal time for
yourself, you know, regardless of what your life situation is, which
life situations can get very intense. So
for sure. So what. What made you. Because you've been doing
the. The marketing, you've been working with your husband. For.
Did you say 30 years. Is that what I read? Oh, my gosh, yes. Oh,
yeah, yeah, right. I did go through your
website. So I'm like, I'm trying to remember it. Oh my
gosh. We've been, we've had this swag business which we started.. My
youngest son was swag three. No, two, two and a half or three when we
started the swag business. And I loved it because
I could work from. Back in the day. No one worked from home, but I
could work from home, do it during school hours, you know, and then
be home with the kids after school, before school, that kind of thing. That was
important to me and have more balance.
And then it just grew and grew and it's
fun. It's fun to get people swag and jackets and
pens and it's nothing. It's not, it's not nuclear
weapons and it's not missiles. It's not like high
tech anything. It's just fun stuff that people are handing out
to other people. So, yeah, it's fun stuff and it's been
a fun, fun business to do. It's changed so much over the course
of those 30 years, almost 30 years and. But
it's, it's a lot. It's fun, fun, fun. So the way
positive activity came in, because in 2012,
I was in the ditch with a lot of stuff
happening in business because remember, there was a recession,
which was horrible for our business. Obviously.
My son, who was with autism, was transitioning
from high school into the adult world, which at that time
was a big abyss of what are we going to do with him? And help
him have a great day every day. My daughter was a
Division 1 athlete and played lacrosse in college, was
home with post concussion syndrome. She was a senior.
She had in a dark room, home, the whole thing. So all of
these things just accumulated at
one time and I, I just didn't have the
skills to work through it all. I thought I was
doing an okay job, you know, I didn't know at the time that I wasn't,
but I was like a wreck. My daughter
at the time asked me to take her to a wellness
fair because she couldn't drive. I had a driver and I'm like, okay, well what
is a wellness fair? But sure, let's go do it. And I drove her to
our local, a local hotel that was having it. And that's where I
picked up the books, went to some presentations, started
learning about mindset, shifting your thoughts,
your words, your beliefs, how they are entrenched in
your Subconscious brain. I even know I had a subconscious brain. I didn't
understand about and appreciate. I didn't know anything. I
was mad, first of all, that I didn't know. And then I
just. I just came to after six months of studying and reading and reading and
learning and studying this, you know, because I'm a math brain. I have a spirit.
I have a master's in math. I'm very black and white. So these
concepts were so gray and so
surreal and so, like, spiritual. And I
was also raised Catholic, which this wasn't taught at all.
Right. You. You confess your sins. You have to do good to get into
heaven. You have to do. That's the way I was raised. So I
just didn't get it. So as I learned and as I
evolved and as I learned more and I said.
And then I listened to. Shawn Achor has an amazing
TED Talk on Happiness on YouTube. It's
12 minutes and 53 seconds of awesomeness. And he
actually studied these practices that we
teach that help. He's actually proving the law of attraction, which
he doesn't call it that because he's. He's a scientist, and, you know, it's that
kind of thing. But I'm like, oh, my gosh. He proved and showed.
All of those benefits that are listed on our website are from his
TED Talk, where he studied people
doing an appreciation practice every morning. Five minutes
of meditation, 30 minutes of moving your body,
a conscious act of kindness every day, and
conscious recall where you write down something that made
you laugh or smile or whatever the day before. And
I said, okay, well, I'm gonna start doing these
and see what shifts and changes for me. And.
And you physically wrote them all down. Is that what you. Did you do them
in your journal every morning? Yes. And there is a download on our website where
you can download these practices and do the. Just follow along and do
them yourself. And I said, okay, Neil,
this is ridiculous. Look at these amazing things that people can do
in the comfort of their own home. They're free.
They're simple. How can I not teach this? This is. This
is craziness for sales teams, for
individuals, for anyone that has goals and wants and
desires. So these practices help keep you up here,
and it's keeping you up here that helps you
receive all that you want because you're allowing it in. So
that's how it started, because I was that math
brain, bought into the science and was like, okay, this is
cool, you know, And I want to teach this. Yeah.
Well, that's awesome. Yeah. Thank You.
He also talks about how we have the happiness equation wrong,
which I think is a key concept because I was raised, I
was. Well, okay, maybe my parents didn't
mean to raise me this way, but this is what I thought. You know, you
get good grades, you get into a good college, you get, you know, good
grades, you know, your teachers like you, whatever you get, get to a good college,
you graduate, you're going to get a good job, and then you're going to be
happy. And then this is going to be happy. You find the relationship, the person,
the partner, then you're going to be happy. You get that new car,
then you're going to be happy. And maybe you are for
a few days, a few weeks, a few months. But
research has shown that our brains work in the opposite
direction. Happiness,
love, compassion, all of that great emotion,
that's what brings you success, that's what brings you what you want.
So we have that equation wrong. And. No, I mean,
I love my parents. They raised me great, but they just didn't know either. So.
Right. I'm like, now that I know and now that this has
shown, shown the way it is, that's the way it is. And now that I
read other texts or even when you read a novel, a
fiction novel or something, that's always the theme is there,
that you know about love and compassion and joy and
optimism is the way you want to live and everything else
will come to you. So that was a hard concept.
Yeah, I mean, it was a hard concept for me to understand
at first, but then I was like, oh, wow. Once he said it, I was
like, okay, yes, that makes so much sense. And also your perception,
your person, you know, he studied that.
10% of your long term happiness is
predicted by the home you have, the car you drive, the
money in your bank account, like tangible things in your life.
But 90% of your long term happiness is based on how
you perceive what's going on in your life
and how you can shift that perception. You know,
I always talk about the concept or
the experience of COVID You know, we were devastated
at first. You know, sales were down. We were all worried, are we going to
get sick? What's going to happen? Is anything ever going to open? So after two
weeks of like, you know, anxiousness,
worry, fear, doubt, my old friends,
I said, we said, and I said to Neil, I said, okay,
here's the gist. This is what we're gonna do. We're gonna like,
I decluttered my marketing closet, I decluttered my files.
We emailed every single client individually and asked if we could
have their home address to mail them some swag and mail them stuff.
99% of them said yes and gave us their home addresses so we could
stay connected with them. Because we did. They weren't in the buildings anymore.
They weren't for a long time. Remember in the buildings. Yeah, did that.
And then PPP, remember the
masks and the hand sanitizer and the hand sanitizer sprays,
all that protective equipment we were able to get for our
clients through our factories. So we did that.
So we shifted our perception of it.
We got to spend time with our family. You know, the, the
holidays weren't rushed and going to five or six different parties, it was just,
just family and calm and peace. So,
yeah, your perception of what's going on is
90% of your predicts, 90% of your long term happiness,
which I just, I just loved that. Yeah,
yeah. The. Just the re. And it's a reframe. Reframe.
Yeah. Can't do, can't do anything about what's
out of our control, which tends to be more than we want.
Yes. What are we going to do in the,
in, in the middle of it? Yeah, that's, that's, that's beautiful.
So you have a really lovely story also with
your son and with autism. And
I, I just got to ask about that.
Sure. Yeah. So I'll tell you this. So
our son, who at the time was 31 years old, he's now
35 and he's a non
speaker. He's a repetitive speaker and unreliable
speaker. He always does seem to understand everything we would tell him.
And he went through grade school, high school, the whole thing. Didn't get a diploma
or anything. It was never in a special ed class. I'm sorry. He was never
in a regular education classroom. And even with
speech therapy and all of that for, I don't know, 18, 20
years he's in school, never really helped him to
speak. So at about
31, a friend of Neil said, Neil, I've learned of this
new communication method, it's called spelling. To communicate, you need
to get the book underestimated. So Neil ordered the
book, the book comes in, I opened the Amazon box, pull it out,
and it's underestimated. And autism, the tagline
was an autism miracle. And I went, oh, no,
not another one. Right, so over here. Exactly.
Because we've had tens, 20, 30s of
those and thousands of dollars and, you know, journeys and paths
that I was like, oh, I don't know. So I put the book down and
I said, I'll let Neil read this one. You know, this was his friend. Out
of respect for Eliza, I'll let Neil read the book. So the book sat on
the table for about six months. Another friend of mine, here's how
the universe knocks you in the head a couple of times, right? Linda
said, Lori, we have a new doctor working in our office and she is
the medical director of an autism research study. I think you should come
in and talk to her. Like, oh, I'd love to. So I go in, I
met with Dr. Heather, sat down. The first thing she says to me, lori,
have you read Underestimated? I have another patient in New Jersey using
this program. I'm like, oh, my brother, no,
but I'll go home and read it tonight. So I read it in one night.
And it's the story of a young man just like Craig and
his dad, who also found spelling to communicate
from another parent. And what it is, I don't have a board here,
but it's so simple. It's a plastic
board with letters on it,
A to Z. And you teach
the child, the adult, the young adult, to point to letters
to spell out what they want to say. So just because
you can't speak, right, so these motor, my motor cortex is here and
it's sending signals to my mouth to say what I need to say.
When you have apraxia, which most non speaking autistic
people have, those messages from the motor cortex to the
mouth are not getting there. So that
does not mean you don't have knowledge and words
and ideas and hopes and dreams and wants
those are stored here in a different section of your brain. So they're
all sitting in there, but they're not able to get to the motor cortex
and out the mouth. Okay, So I had no idea of this.
I didn't understand it. I said, okay. I found a practitioner in Rhode
Island. We drove an hour, I took Craig an hour and a half, went down
there, she sat down, she said, Craig, I know you're in there.
I know you're intelligent, I know you're smart. I'm going to
read you this paragraph about Dr. Stephen Hawking. And then I'm going to ask you
a few questions. And after I ask you the questions, I'm going to give you
this pencil with your, with your hand. I want you to spell
out the answers from the board. And I sat there and I
watched him spell out the answers. The first answer was black holes. And he
spells out black holes. She didn't tell him how to spell black holes. He
already knew how to spell black holes because he's brilliant.
And the next thing she asked him was Craig,
what's another word for sun? S, U, N. And he
spells out S, O, L. And I said, well, timeout. Crystal.
That wasn't in the lesson. How did he know that? She goes, Lori,
this is prior knowledge. He has so much knowledge in his brain
because he's been listening for 31 years and taking it all in
and taking it all in and taking it all in. And now it's in there.
So now here we are three years later and he
has hopes, he has dreams, he has, he's told us his goals. He wants
to get a high school diploma. He has friends that he
talks back and forth with and they spell on their boards.
Some spellers are now using
computers or iPads and they type and then the iPad speaks
for them. It's a whole movement. So you know
anyone, anyone with a non speaking
autistic person in their life, go, well, the
first thing I would do is go to YouTube and look up the movie,
the Spellers. The movie. And it's a documentary about the book
Underestimated. And the book is on Amazon. It's an excellent book.
And by the way, in the United States, just, just this last week,
we now have an autism, a Federal Autism
Research Council. Three of the members are non
speakers. Two using the letterboards, one using
typing. It's huge. It's a whole movement in our country now.
And it's. And then from there there's, there's
different in the book. If anyone wants information on it, go to my website,
my email is right there. Email me and I'll send you where I can tell
you where to go. That's great. So worth trying
because your child has been listening and he knows his family, he knows his
siblings, even though he never paid attention to them. He
sends them messages now. He talks to them through the board.
It's open. It's turned our world on its head and I'm
doing a lot of advocating for it and all. But if I wasn't open,
well, I wasn't so open, was I? Because I hadn't been told twice. But if
at least I was open and allowing and. Yeah, and
so that's about. That's amazing. Wonderful. So
I'm curious, so the ones that, that do the board versus the
ones that type, is there something going on in the brain also that makes
it harder to type for some? Yes. Yes. Okay. Because
typing is a very difficult fine motor Skill. Right.
Talking is a fine motor skill. So a lot of the kids don't have
good fine motor skills after any OT that works with them.
So it's taken Craig, like, he's so cute when
he's purposely pointing now to the letters. He doesn't use a pencil anymore. He uses
his finger. Finger. And so that has to be become
motor. It's all about motor planning. You got to teach it. You got to teach
it. You got to teach it. It's repetition. Same with typing.
Repetition, repetition, repetition. And of
course, we have these keyboards that are not in alphabetical order. So you've got to
figure out where the letter is when you need it. So that's all
hand, eye movement. That's very difficult when you have
apraxia. So some kids may never get to a keyboard because
they just, they're happy just using the laminate
board or a stencil board. But it is a higher
motor planning skill. Yes. Yeah,
that's. That's really good info. And I imagine, you know, just, just
raising a child with autism is, was something that
just really was it. Was it kind
of out. I mean, did you have other friends and stuff that were in that
same thing with you or did it feel isol. Well, remember,
I feel like the grandmother of the autism community, to be quite frank, because
Craig's now 35. So in
1993, when he was diagnosed, they didn't even
call it autism. They called it pervasive developmental disorder.
Like, what the hell is that? Go try to get. And there wasn't the Internet.
Then I had to go to the library to see what I could find on
pervasive developmental dose disorder. There wasn't anything out there
on that. It took time to figure out
that, oh, you mean autism, for God's sake. And he started
speech therapy. He started ot. We got him into
special needs preschool. They didn't. He was the only one, the only
one. So I was in there training them on what to
do, training them on creating a communication board, which
was pictures and words for him to point to, you know, for
bathroom or break or snack or run or
swing or whatever he wanted to do. And
then I would guess, like once Craig was like 3, 4
years old, we started an organization called PACE Parents
Assisting Special Educators. So it was a, like a
parent run PTO for special needs classrooms.
So for 18, 20 years, 20 years, we raised money every year
and we gave it back to the special needs classrooms in our community
here in southern New Hampshire. And the teachers would write in at
the time, again, write in or email. I guess back then there was email
to tell us, ask us for things like Velcro or, you know,
mats for the kids to sit on, all kinds of equipment that
they needed for the, for their classrooms. And it was a
great. We loved it. We loved doing it, so that was
fun. And then we met more and then unfortunately,
the explosion of autism started to happen at the end of the 90s.
And it's just now I have so many friends now that
are. That I've met through spelling, and we all
help each other out. We have a large community here in southern New Hampshire,
northern Massachusetts. And it's, It's. It's a thing.
It's a big deal. So I am. But you are kind of an island. Because
the thing is, every child on this
with this diagnosis is different. They're different,
their needs are different, their expression is different.
What's going on medically is different. It's just different for
everyone. And that's what makes it hard.
But we. Yeah. So I think, I think a lot of times
parents, when their child is first diagnosed, I get a lot of calls from parents
whose kids are young, 3, 4, 5, 6 years old and
help them through that initial process because it, it is like, gut wrenching
at first. It's almost like now there's too much information out
there. Right? Like, but back in the 90s, there was nothing. And now it's like,
bah. It's everywhere. You know, what do you do? And not everybody agrees on
what to do. You know, you have to be really secure and confident on the
path you want to take and don't let any detractor, you
know, anyone else distract you. You know, I, we turned over
every rock. I will say that for sure, anytime I heard of a new
therapy, vitamin concept, Dr. Blah, blah,
blah. Yep, let's go check it out. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, I can. I. I haven't had that
experience, so it's like, I can, you know, I can imagine
that there was just. Even though, I will say, even though we didn't have
friends with children diagnosed,
our community of friends here in southern New Hampshire
were all in helping us with pace, helping us set up
the fundraisers, helping us raise money, creating amazing
silent auction gifts. Like we had. We had
a blanket around us always of our amazing, you know, family.
Family and friends. Even though they didn't have the
experience, it didn't matter. So. Yeah, that was
great. Yeah, that's great.
So with the positive activity.net
and the pace that, that you were doing. Do you
do. Because you do some public speaking also. Correct?
Yeah. So do you do that a lot in the autism community or
for sales? I know, yeah. Like most women, you have.
You're multifaceted with what you're doing. Multifaceted.
So I have speeches written, you know,
targeted to targeted audiences. So I have. We, I. We.
I should say Neil and I sometimes do it together. So either myself or. And.
Or Neil. Together we speak to the special
needs community. So caretakers,
meaning direct support, people that work for health and
human services agencies, parents and
special ed teachers will do. And we don't
even charge for that. We just do it because we want them to know how
they can lower their stress levels, how they can be more optimistic
and positive. Oh, and by the way, I give my top 10 things of what
I did when Craig was young that I think, you know,
help just to give us a good foundation. I talk about that.
Then we have a speaker series for many of our
clients. Call us to come into their sales meetings or
their health and, you know, their wellness day meetings and
that kind of thing to help those employees
just be more optimistic and positive because they see the benefits
that it does for the employee. It's only going to affect the
business as well. So we do. We have a series on that as
well. That's great. So it just depends on the audience. And of
course, there are audiences that are more spiritually based.
And for that, it's a. It's. I talk
more about the, you know, the energy of the universe, how we are energy,
how we are always manifesting and that kind of thing.
That's a whole nother thing. So. But all of it, I love. You
have to meet people where they are. And that's. That's the point. You meet people
where they are and you explain concepts and
then you can. They can take it to the next level if they want to.
Yeah, I love it. And I imagine you can book on
your page the positiveactivity.net.
yeah, that's super good. Well,
Lori, what else? Oh, my gosh,
what else? Oh, well, I'd be remiss if I didn't
mention Neil's book. My husband wrote a book. I saw that, and I
love the title of it. Yeah, it's on the website. Yes. Or you can sell
on Amazon. But it's Bar Tips: Anything I
Needed to Know in Sales I Learned Behind the Bar. And it's
just amazing, cute little tips that
are so relevant to sales, to the sales community, to being
in sales and being in business, really. And in
here's the funny thing. He goes to talk. He does speeches at
Berkeley School of Music and he goes to talk to the singer
songwriters. So they think they're musicians and
they're artists and they're creative and which they are, all of that. But guess what?
Once you graduate college, you're a salesperson now because you're selling you.
You're selling your talent, you're selling your songs, you're selling yourself.
So he loves going in there and teaching them because they have no concepts
of these things. So
that's another avenue too. So that's really fun.
I can relate to that. I have it. One of my daughters did all
kinds of bartending and she's a dancer,
does different dances. And now Zouk is what
she's teaching and stuff. But that is the. And of course
I'm an actor. So like, you know, I lived in Atlanta before I moved
here and was more into.
I don't. I've kind of stepped back a little bit in Reno, but
all the community of actors there. So you. And then I lived in Nashville with
all the musicians. Yeah.
So the whole creative community. I need to watch you do something.
What were you in? I have to go watch you in something.
You could go to my IMDb.
It's mostly. Mostly independent stuff. Yeah. Cool.
But I guess. Oh, gosh.
Yeah. But. But
everyone does restaurant work or bartending or
something to pay bills because the creative world
of. Is an entrepreneurship field
that's way less defined in how you make
money than I think, other ways of making money. So
it's like I got into that and, you know, I had been, you know, my
ex husband that was business insurance and
the different sales things. So that's. That's so different
mindset from an, from a creative. So then I got
into a very creative field and I'm like, what do you all do to,
you know, how does this work? How do these things work together? And I feel
like I am still. Still asking myself those questions to some
degree. But you almost have to find.
Many people just have to find a way to
make money as they're trying to make the bigger money
or the other money. With creative. It's. It is a
complex life right in that and. And
there's no shame in that. You do it. You make so many
connections really, and you garner someone many amazing
skills. When you're working in hospitality, either as a bartender or
a wait staff, you're selling too. Oh, you know,
you know, the next. The dessert, the extra cup of coffee, the. The extra
drink, the whatever it is. You're still selling. And those.
So those concepts translate into selling your creative
force as well. Oh, yeah. And. And just. Just
being. Just kind of the poker face sometimes, too. I know.
I've heard all the stories. I've not bartended, but, you know, about
being positive when you're, like, you're not so sure
you don't want them to leave the restaurant. You know. That's in
the book. That's the story about that, too. Yeah. Yeah.
That is a very strong correlation to selling.
But that. the concept, too. I love that you brought that up. The concept
that no matter what field you're in, you need
to be presenting yourself. The way you present yourself to others
is, you know, quote, unquote, sales. Right.
As a teacher, the presenting of concepts or whatever you're. You're
promoting. Yes. The
positive acceptance of what it is that you have
for people. Yeah.
That's where the positivity comes into. Don't you think so? Yeah.
Yeah. I love it. Well, Lori, thank you
for your time and just for being available
to people to both. Both with
the main business and with the coaching speaking and then
with anyone with autism who can come to you. So.
And everyone can just reach you on at. Is it
lori@positiveactivity.net? that's it.
All right. Thank you, Mary. This is a
great conversation. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Lori. I appreciate you so much.
So. All right, you have a good day. Bye.
Bye.