In this episode, I have a conversation with life coach Mike Lamb about inspiring you to be the best version of yourself & live life intentionally. He shares the challenges in his life journey and how he took charge and started living more intentionally by connecting with his values and purpose in life. We talk about the importance of having a morning routine, having a coach who speaks the truth to you, how we can overcome our limiting beliefs, and the importance of being grateful. Mike also shared his Twitter project #15daysofgratitude, which is a great way to change our approach to life and live a more grateful and intentional life.

Episode Transcript

LF Episdoe 9 - Mike Lamb

Rizwan Javaid: Welcome to the show, Mike.

Mike Lamb: Hey, glad to be here. Thank you so much for having me. It was one of me, so excited to be here.

Rizwan Javaid: I've been following you on Twitter and the Twitter spaces that you've been a big part of and just the message that you are sharing with the community of, having the right mindset and having a purpose and, helping people overcome their challenges.

And I think today's conversation will be really helpful for the listeners because, we both have those goals in mind, to helping others. And it be exciting to see where we go.

Yeah, no, I'm excited about those are definitely topics that are, I'm very passionate about things I'm excited to. I don't know, things that I feel like, there's those topics that you can talk about without any prompts.

So you can talk about without lots of planning. And I feel like each of those has been things that I've been passionate about and I'm really excited to have the conversation.

Awesome. So before we get into that, just wanted to learn a little bit more about you, about becoming a creator on Twitter.

Mike Lamb: So my career is in it, I'm a IT manager here in Portland. I've been, in it for over 20 years. I actually started back in 99 doing a Y2K testing. And so I'd walk around a little floppy disk and put in the computers and see if there were, compatible, or not with the big change.

And that has flourished into a career in it. And I've enjoyed that. It's been good, but it is my nine to five. It's not something that, I wouldn't say it's something that is, I'm super passionate about. What I'm really passionate about is helping people succeed in their goals, helping people overcome challenges and helping people find the life of their dreams.

And I, it has been a good opportunity. There's been a lot of things I've learned through the process. And I enjoy the work but I've also found that there's other things that I've have been I don't know, other areas of life or other things I've been interested in that I've wanted to pursue.

And that's kinda where my creative this creative path has led me to led me over to writing getting active on Twitter, starting a newsletter, building a website and working to build a business around being a life coach. And those are all things that I feel like I've really grown out of these past few years and just challenges I've overcome them.

Rizwan Javaid: That's a great evolution to go where your purposes and to work towards that. And you mentioned, the website, the newsletter, the Twitter spaces, all those things are taking you towards your goal and your purpose. Did you know your purpose when you started out?

Or is that something you've learned

Mike Lamb: I've definitely learned along the way. I had been I think for several years of life, I think probably like a lot of people it was just getting by day to day. It wasn't things weren't bad, they weren't terrible. It wasn't like, I didn't enjoy what I was doing, but I just found that I would wake up everyday, go to work everyday, come home every day.

And there wasn't a lot of direction with it, married with two kids. And there's definitely a great things and great things there, but I found that I wasn't pointing towards a specific direction. I wasn't pursuing a specific passion or it didn't have that central purpose of what I was trying to work towards.

And so I started out by trying to identify what that purpose was or what my goals were or what were the things that I really wanted to achieve and obtain. And that led me down a path of starting. Several years ago, it was doing things like identifying, Hey, I need to develop habits.

I need to develop goals. I need to create a life plan and have a morning routine and all these things that people talk about when it comes to being productive and creating a life you're interested in pursuing. But then that has grown into an interest of me taking what I've learned over the last 10 years or so and finding ways to share that with other people, finding ways to help coach people through those that their own growth, their own life of the challenges they have and help them to be, to live that life of purpose.

So it, and so that's where, yeah, the last list last year, especially has been a big jump for me with starting to get active on Twitter. Just probably a little over a year ago. I, I. Decided to join this this cohort called ship 30 or ship 30 for 30 shipping 30 essays in 30 days.

I had never done anything like that before. I had never written an essay before I had never published anything online before I had never been tweeted before. And so it was a huge challenge, but something that I knew I wanted to try, I wanted to see what this would look like because I wanted to step out of my own comfort zone, step out of my own shell and find ways that I could help people with some of the knowledge I have and things that I've learned over the years.

And it all started with ship 30 and getting those 30 essays out. And over the last year, plus it's been, it's just been lots of more growth it's just been a lot of fun. So I've really enjoyed this.

Rizwan Javaid: That's pretty big changing.

One year. You've gone from not being on Twitter to being present and helping others. That's a big change and shift in just how you approach life and community and helping others. So I think that's that's pretty, pretty impressive. So you were talking about you, you're trying to find your purpose.

Can you share, like anything that you did specifically to help you find your

Mike Lamb: purpose? Yeah. So one thing that really helped me was looking at I guess in some ways it was first off acknowledging where I was where am I currently at today? And do I.

Like where I'm at. What are the things that I don't like, what are the things I'd want to change? And I think that was a big start of just acknowledging where I currently was and I'm trying to figure out exactly where I wanted to go. And so there was the biggest shift for me was putting together a life plan and there's this book called living forward by Michael Hyatt and there's another coauthor can't remember the other co-author.

But in that book, living forward, they walk you through putting together a life plan, which is a, they have templates and whatnot, but it's a big document where basically you, you list out your dimensions in life or your kind of your goal, your areas of life that you're interested in. And as you list out those areas of your life that are important.

So career family. Hobbies mental health, physical health, all those things you then can say, okay, what's my goal for this area of my life, when I die, what I want to be known for, for this area of my life. And it seems a bit odd, but you'd write out a eulogy about that area of your life.

What was it like? What was it like when you at the end? What do you want it to be like when you die? And that helped put me in a mindset of thinking about what about my end to look like? And if I know it I want my end to look like, what do we need to change in the present to get there?

One of the things that need to change today, so I can be on that trajectory. And that was, I think I started that maybe about five or six years ago. And then every year every quarter, and then every December I pull out that life plan. I review it every quarter and then every, at the end of every year, as I plan the next year, I revise it.

I updated, I look at how did I do this last year? How am I doing when my relationship with my, with my wife or with my kids, or how am I doing with, building a better connections with my brothers and sisters or in my own mental health, how am I doing in those areas? And so I then take the areas where I'm the improvements I want to make.

And I design goals around that for the following year. When it comes to being in a. Exercising and being in shape, it's identifying the goals that are going to help me get there. What are the things I have lined up? And so all this to say, I'll try and get back to your question.

How this helped me find my purpose was identifying that this is something I thoroughly enjoy. I've seen how beneficial it is for me to develop a plan for my life to put my, to put myself in a place where identify the goals I'm after the dreams I have and steps to get, to make those dreams reality and how beneficial it's been for me.

And so. when I, then, while I want to do then is work with other people in that. That's where I w I've decided in my journey as being a creator of riding around those topics, tweeting around those topics, hosting spaces, around those topics, my newsletter when I was running, that was around those topics.

And then eventually my goal is to start having clients and coaching clients around those areas building that life that they're dreaming of in then, and that aligns with their overall goals in

Rizwan Javaid: life. Now you're intentional and you.

Each quarter, course correct if you need to, but you have those milestones where you can be more intentional and make sure that you are working towards your purpose and goal in life. Instead of going wherever the wind takes you.

I think that helps you stay

Mike Lamb: focused. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's the other side of that is, is, we, all, everybody wakes up we all start our days the same, we wake up and we all end our days the same and go to bed. And it's our choices in between those two milestones of our days where we can decide if we want to be intentional or.

You know, Be impacted by what happens around us. And I think that's the big thing for me is I've always been somebody that, that likes to be in pursuit of something and have something bigger than myself that I'm after. And identifying, realizing that I can impact my own trajectory of life that I can intentionally pursue my dreams and goals.

Really opened my eyes to what was possible opened my eyes to what I could actually achieve in life and the people I could impact and the family I could have. My kids away, I could impact my kids as a parents. The way I can impact my work or the coworkers, I worked on my team, I manage impact my own health.

You realize when you actually stop and look at it, you realize that. You have agency over your life and you get to make those decisions. And being intentional with those decisions allows you to direct him and move in the in the directions you want to go.

Rizwan Javaid: I guess this came out of that book where you setting your goals and adjusting it on a quarterly

Mike Lamb: basis. Yeah, it started with that book on it actually started. A lot of things started with me or the first book I read around personal development was the miracle morning by Hal Elron that, that book focused around building the importance of a morning routine.

Before I had a morning routine before I was intentional with my day, I had wake up later than I wanted to. I'd be rushing out the door. I'd get to work later than I wanted to. I wouldn't have any time with my family. And this was before we had kids, so I wouldn't have any time with my wife.

And I'd come home And again, just not have any real direction with where I was going as the miracle morning helped me think about starting my day off the right way. How can I start my day off intentionally and accomplish a few things before I move into the rest of my day, and then I realized, Hey, what do I want to accomplish?

What does it actually, I want to do during this time? And so that really helped. And then the living forward putting a life plan together, help take that from that daily habits of a routine into a much bigger, what is my overall vision for my life and help me pursue that. And then in addition to that, I've been, I joined an accountability group or a goals, accountability group where I could share my goals that I had and we would meet weekly and then monthly and talk about what our goals were.

And I've just found how helpful that was. And again, it's, what's really sparked my interest and passion and trying to help other people achieve their goals.

Rizwan Javaid: The accountability group and having a coach, it seems like that's, those are crucial. If you want to overcome some of the challenges that you're having.

I know I've started, I have a coach that I've been working with and who's helped me overcome my limiting beliefs that I've had. And sometimes we just, we don't see those. Because that's how we've been working. Our whole life is thinking. So we think that's the way to do it.

Can you share why it's important to have somebody else there with

Mike Lamb: you supporting you? Absolutely. I think. It's important because it helps you to just like you're saying the limiting beliefs, identifying where those are and how they're limiting you, how they're limiting, what you can achieve.

Oftentimes we I don't know, some people, I feel like are a bit better about identifying challenges for themselves and working in that direction. I know for me that wasn't the case. I needed to have somebody that was like, you can improve here. You can do a little bit better you can achieve and you can grow in these areas.

And having someone speak that truth, somebody that I trust that could speak truth into my life, speak truth into those into areas that I could grow in was foundational for me to have to start to build that confidence to step out. And when you recognize that you have those limiting beliefs and you recognize that you have the you have those challenges, it.

And then you decide, you make the decision that I'm going to work on it. I'm going to overcome it. I'm going to try to accomplish more than I think I've than I've done in the past. You realize that I'm capable of so much more than I ever thought possible. And a good example for me was several years.

I mean, this This is again a long time ago when I first started my my developing goals is I had never run. I had never run a 5k. I'd never run very far. I was like, ah, I got bad knees, bad joints, my feet here. I don't know. And I wasn't young. I was probably in my late twenties, early thirties.

And I was like no, this is this is, I can't do this. And then I realized that was a limiting belief. I realized that was something that was holding me back. And I had a coach that encouraged me, like, why are you allowing that to hold you back? Why is this true?

And I realized that. I hadn't even tested that limiting belief. I just assumed it was true. And so when I started testing it, I found I actually enjoy running, Hey my, my feet, my knees, those are all fine. They might be a little sore from exercise, but that's not a big deal. And that year I accomplished a 5k and then I think I did a 10 K and then in subsequent years, I've completed 15 Ks, a half marathon.

I did a triathlon. I've done a couple of century rides or at a hundred rode a hundred miles. And then my biggest accomplishment to date for as far as those types of challenges is I've I wrote 203 miles in one day. So it was from Seattle, Washington to Portland, Oregon. That was a bit crazy.

But I had him mind. It was one of my goals and I knew going from the point of not really. I believe, and I could accomplish a 5k. I couldn't accomplish starting two and a half miles to biking. 203 miles was all about it. It didn't happen over night. It was a few years and it, but it was little incremental goals and challenging those limiting beliefs that I have and setting those goals as I go through and realizing I can do these things.

And again, this is exactly what I love to do for other people is I want them to recognize the limiting beliefs in their own lives recognize where they have challenges that are preventing them from maybe living the life of their dreams or being the person that they want to be. And how do we work through those?

How do we have that breakthrough? How do we identify small milestones that will get you from from that I can't run to that. I can go around the block two. I can go two times around the block. I can go half a mile slowly build up. And each of those things are small building blocks for the for achieving the biggest dreams.

Rizwan Javaid: I recently read liminal thinking by Dave gray. That's a great book in understanding how we create our beliefs and how we adopt them over the years and how they're structured. And so it's all in our, all the way we think about it and all in our heads.

And I've recently realized, like it's just a small shift in perspective that can unlock your whole world for you. And it's not like you have to go spend a lot of money. You don't have to, you don't have to buy anything, but you need some support along the way, because it's not easy.

Like you said, it takes years sometimes, but it is a change in perspective. And so continually being reminded of that change and that you can do it. This is just this is how you've been, your default behavior has been. So it's going to take time to overcome it, but going from not doing to doing so freeing, right?

What you thought was impossible is now possible. Can you share some of those, emotions that come more than

Mike Lamb: how that feels? Yeah. I think when you have that realization that when you break through that limiting belief break out of that box that you're in it feels freeing.

It feels in some ways you feel invincible in some ways you feel like, feel more, potentially more powerful than you felt in the past. And I think it builds that it really builds their confidence of, I if I can achieve this goal, what else can I do? And that can, that isn't just on the.

I can't run too. I'm going to, I can complete a triathlon. It's not just that type of a goal. It can be anything that you'd have where I'm not a reader I don't read. And to where you say I'm going to read one page a day, that's it. I'm gonna read one page a day or five minutes a day. And then as you start accomplishing those five minutes or those small milestones, you start achieving those, you then realize that I can build off that into the bigger goals and a bigger milestones that I continue to grow.

And that, it is opens up so much more of what you can tackle in life and what you can go after, as opposed to having that belief. I'm not this person. So as a quick example, I had this belief that I wasn't a creator even as, even though as a as a kid, I loved doing arts. I loved I did a lot of drawings, paintings I'd work on like crafts.

I was just, I loved Legos. I love building things. And yet some reason those that all stopped you as a teenager and then into a twenties, I just, I labeled myself as that. I wasn't a creator. And so that was my own limiting belief I had to work through when I started writing.

And when I started writing essays was that I'm going to figure out how to be a creator again, I'm going to do this. This is something I want to I want to. I want to grow it. And so having that mindset of that growth mindset, where I can start saying I can accomplish bigger things, it opened up this whole world and I could have done.

What I probably typically would have done is now I'm not a creator. I don't want to do that. I'm not a writer. That's too much work. And who knows where I'd be at this point, but here it is a little over a year later and it's been an extremely fun journey. So it, so that's the other thing with the emotions.

I feel like it's fun. It's you feel like you can break out of more than just this box that maybe you've identified yourself with, or maybe in other people have put labels on you and you can break through free from those and realize I can accomplish more than I thought.

Rizwan Javaid: I think it puts you in the, the driver's seat of your life and your career and that you don't just wait for things to happen to you and react you're out there, you take charge.

And I'm speaking from my experience, just a few months ago, Leni, like instead of leaning in, I was always in the background and not wanting to have attention on me, all that. Thinking about these things and being more intentional, I've seen the change of now leaning in and wanting to take charge of my life instead of waking up and seeing how the, whenever it happens, I have to react to it.

And that's it. Three emails that's really limiting. And that's the possibilities. I just, what in front of you, this you can't you can't imagine the other opportunities because you're so focused on this, trying to get through this one situation. Yeah.

Mike Lamb: Yeah. It's you think about a ship out to sea?

Without a. It's just going to be thrown around by whatever the waves throw at it. And you can't control the waves, you can't control the weather, you can't control the storms, the calm, the all those things are outside of your control. What you can control as the rudder, what you can control as the engine, what you can control is the sale.

And those are all things that, that once you realize that you control those things that have the ability to give that direction to your life, it is so much more ownership that goes on you and you've, and you have this sense of, I can accomplish more than I thought I can do more things than I thought.

I can go places that I never thought I could go. And it's just, it's such a powerful thing.

Rizwan Javaid: It's pretty amazing., it's so energizing to know that you have that power. And you can you don't have to depend on external factors. You can take charge and whatever happens, but at least you're in the driver's seat of your life.

I think having accountability is key. If unless you don't need it, but I think it's general population and nothing people need help to overcome these challenges and they need some guidance too. So whether you can have an accountability group to reach your goals, or have somebody there dedicated to help you overcome them, I think is a great step because life is too short to not to achieve

Mike Lamb: your potential.

Yeah. There's that saying? That talks about, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go further, go together. And I think that's a key aspect of understanding that community, where we're designing for community, where to design for connection we're designed for for relationships, for friendships.

And when you have when you find your tribe, when you find your community that you're, that is going the same place that you're going or excited, the same things you're excited about. It gives us that much more flavor to life and you're in the daily basis and that's what makes it so much fun.

And yeah, I think having I think since my, my, I started my creator journey really I've started to build those relationships, start to build those connections. And that's just. You know that it's just, as it again has made it so much more fun. When you're excited people celebrate, when you're down and depressed, people can encourage you.

When you feel stuck they can help you. And again, having a coach, having a community, those are all things that I just see so much value in. Yeah,

Rizwan Javaid: definitely. with creatives, it's easy to fall into the trap of I'm creative and I'm going to be in my own world in my own head.

Maybe that helps, helped us create some something, but it's not going to help us move forward towards the goals. We need to open up to other people, other ideas, cause that's where creativity comes from is just getting more ideas and, or playing off other people's ideas. And so the more input we have, the more feedback we have the

Mike Lamb: better.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that also goes into that can sometimes play into a scarcity mindset that we run into where you have this, you think that if I share my ideas, someone's going to take them. If I share my goals, somebody else will try and challenge that. Or there's as a creator there's not enough pieces of the pie for me to get some and for this other person, That's all not true.

And when you shift that around from from you shift that into an abundance mindset, you realize that there's plenty of pie for everybody. And you are the only one that's unique. Like you there's no one else that has been through your life experiences has made the decisions you've had that has had the challenges that you've had that it has accomplished what you've accomplished.

And that creates a unique perspective from you that you get to share with the world. And as a creator, that's freeing to be able to think about. Yes, there's a lot of people out there talking about productivity and mindset and coaching and living an intentional life. But no one's been through the experiences that I've been through.

No one's been through has made the decisions that I've made. And that gives me the ability to share from my own experience and my own passion to help others. And so I think that's a key part of it, too, of knowing that in community, it's that kind of iron sharpens iron type of an approach where you find ways you find new insights and new things that you can discover.

And it's just, it's so much fun. Yeah.

Rizwan Javaid: Is so important as we especially in social media, because we see other people and we see them doing great and we know why we're doing great. And so there's all those things that come to mind, but changing from a scarcity mindset that I'm going to hold on to this idea.

If somebody had knows about it, they will take it or open up to the possibilities that are out there for you. Instead of thinking that this is one thing if out there for me and if I don't hold onto it somebody else will take it. And so I think changing that perspective of from scarcity to abundance both within and outside, you think that's that can help solve a lot of

Mike Lamb: the challenges that we have.

Yeah, absolutely. And realizing that. Yeah, realizing that there's in that abundance mindset it frees you up to look at other possibilities. So instead of just being narrowly focused on, here's the one thing I'm going to work on, or the one thing I'm going to create, or the one thing I'm good at, it opens up the more possibilities than maybe things you didn't think about.

And I think that's the key, again, just another key of being a prolific creator and being someone that can always have a new way of approaching a problem or a new way of looking at at a challenge. And not thinking that it will, it has to always be this way or has to always be this through this form.

So I think that abundance mindset is so important and especially with. Especially as a creator, when you're starting to think of to your point about comparing to others on social media I don't remember who said it, but there's a saying that never compare your beginning to somebody else's end, never compare your draft.

One to somebody else's masterpiece never compare your scribbled drawing to somebody else's MonaLisa because they took, it, took them a lot of work to get there and you're on the journey. So be willing to to experiment, be willing, to try, be willing to be willing to try different things or new things, or a different way of approaches and be willing to fail and learn as opposed to never try it at all.

And I think that's another aspect of it too, is that when failing is not failing. Failing is learning and that's, if we have that mindset of, we can learn from our failures you'll never stop learning and there were stop growing, never stop right where you're at.

You're always going to be learning something new.

Rizwan Javaid: Yeah. That's a really key, just the mistakes we make, help us learn and grow. And we get that feedback. So the faster you can learn what you need to where are you, what do you need to do, where you need to go, the faster you get that feedback and you can adjust course.

So you talked about starting on this creative path Like this, there's always that idea of having fear of taking a step and trying something and failing at it. Did you experience any of that and as you,

Mike Lamb: as you began your journey? Oh yes. Unfortunately more than I'd like to admit.

But I had a w as we were starting this creator journey in in I had been wanting to do some type of creative outlet or some type of writing for a while, and always been nervous about doing didn't really know how to do it. So I bought a website and built a website in 2020.

Probably like just what everybody else they were at home from pandemics. What do you know, what are you gonna do? I guess we'll build a website. So I put a website together with the full intention of starting a blog and the website was ready to go in August of 2020. And I was like, all right, here's my goal.

I'm gonna write one blog post. And I was just scared. I was so scared to write. I was so scared to have people see it, that people wouldn't like it, that it would be it just would be well received or criticized, whatever might be. And so I spent four months trying to convince myself that I could write it and I wrote nothing.

I probably did maybe a draft or something, but I was so scared of it, about it. And then that's where I discovered ship 30 in January of 2021. And that's where I was like, all right, I just need to face this fear. I know there's a fear of mine. It's a fear of mine to publish. It's a fear of mine to put some out there in the world and have the world give it feed.

And I recognize that's a limiting belief I have, and that's limiting from limiting me from pursuing what my goals are, what my dreams are. And so for me, it was really having the courage to first off, recognize that I had this limiting beliefs recognize that that I control to make a decision and then make that decision of I'm going to do something different and then have the courage to step out and do that thing.

Take action. So that was the I feel like that's a good example for me of where the fear really held me back and recognizing that I had the agency to make decisions to either accept that fear and to be limited by it or to break through that fear that really helped me to move in and get this creative journey moving so much more.

Rizwan Javaid: He's talked about the agency and you have to come to that point where you are aware of this limiting bleach and you're aware of what's holding you back aware of this fear is getting to that awareness is I think like the first step to to make any change happen, you have to be aware of this and maybe writing can help or morning pages.

Can you talk about how can we come more aware of these things that we're doing?

Mike Lamb: Yeah. I think writing was one of the aspects that was really helpful for me. I started morning pages in for a little bit and started journaling doing the five minute journal different aspects like that.

And I think you, when you start writing these things out, you start realizing. You start realizing where you have these limiting beliefs are impacting you and where you're preventing yourself from maybe moving into the next area of your life. And yeah, writing morning pages I would say also conversations with friends, conversations with people you trust being in the community starting a challenge identifying that, Hey, here's something that I want to get better at.

So let me join a cohort or a challenge where I can work on that thing. Those are all ways that I feel like are gives you the ability to step out step through that fear and embrace it in some ways and push through it to find what you want, because there's this quote by Georgia dare that says everything you've ever wanted is sitting on the other side of fear.

And I feel like when you actually realize that when you realize that the thing I'm after the thing I want is on the inside of my. It gives you the courage to actually step through that fear and to make the choices and decisions that you've probably been avoiding for a long time.

Rizwan Javaid: Yeah, that's a really powerful just I was speaking with a previous guest William Willis coach.

Yeah, coach. And he was talking about when fear comes up we get caught up in the emotion of the fear and we get we get flustered and we get distracted and all that happens because of fever. We need to change our perspective and look at the message that the fear is bringing for us.

And so if you're trying to say, speak in front of a group of people and you're you're, you have a fear in you and it's it's causing you anxiety. What, if you went towards that fear and maybe this is something that you need to be doing. And this is like you said, where you want to accomplish is beyond the fear.

And so using fear as a guide and set off something to run away from. I think that could be an

Mike Lamb: opportunity. Yeah, no, I think that's spot on. Of course, coach will would say that. That's I think it's so true that when you, if there's something you're afraid of, there's a reason that you're afraid of it.

And so really looking at it as objective as you can and figuring out is this something that I want to pursue and maybe it's a fear for a good reason, maybe there's something you're afraid of. And that's not something you want to pursue. You're not interested in, but I generally feel like the things that.

When you let your fear control you, you're going to limit yourself way more than you would. If you, I identified in here, I'm afraid. I know I'm afraid. And I know I have the agency to step through and to do something about it. And I think potentially I really liked that point that he made about let, almost let your fears guide you if you're afraid of something, we really look at that.

Cause maybe that's some should be pursuing.

Rizwan Javaid: Yeah. I think that's helped me at least every time I come across a fear you know what what is this telling me? What is, what am I trying to do? And it is, it still needs to be aligned to where you want to go and your purpose and your mission, but at least that's a good way to check fare instead of just letting it take over you and keep you small and within the box.

Mike Lamb: Yeah, absolutely.

Rizwan Javaid: I know you started a 15 days of gratitude challenge on Twitter. I think that was, that's a great way to help us realize what we have instead of always focusing on what we don't have. And that's a big challenge for me and maybe for other creatives as well is we only focus on what we don't have.

We want what we want to get and achieve and do that. We don't appreciate what we have, where we've done where we've been. So we don't look back. Can you talk about how this challenge came about or yeah.

Mike Lamb: Yeah. Yeah. So this was a 15 days of gratitude. Done that challenge a couple of times now in the last, I dunno, nine months or so.

But what I realized is that especially with especially with news or other things that get shared, we always share a lot of things that are negative. We always, we sh people, or news is focused around what might be negative as opposed to what's working well. And I know for me, and for all of us we get more of what we focus on.

You focus on negativity, you're gonna get more negativity. You focus on what's going wrong. More things are probably going to go wrong. If you, but if you focus on what's positive, more positive, you'll get more positive. You focus on what's working. More things are probably going to go.

And so I felt like that same thing with gratitude. If I could spend. More time focused on focusing on what was working and what I was grateful for that would change my perspective of my day. And if I can do that enough consecutive days, that could change perspective my week change perspective of my month, of my year and of your life.

And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to start it. I was doing some some reading and found that people that are grateful are more resilient in life. They're happier in life. They they're probably happier people like being around them.

I, we all know people that are just like Debbie downers and just woe is me and life sucks. And it's yeah we all have those days, but we also can choose to have days that we talk about what we're grateful for. And I think that this is the 15 days of gratitude was something that.

I started because I wanted to have a short challenge where I felt like people could get engaged with it. I wanted to and for those that are for the listeners, it's a 15 days of gratitude as a challenge where one day over 15 days you would tweet or share something that you were grateful for.

And people were sharing things about being great for their kids or for their job or for the weather or for hot coffee, or for talking with friends on zoom, whatever it might be an end. It was, I've can I consistently get positive feedback about it. And it's something I've enjoyed and is actually something that I feel has also impacted me in, in, in in a lot of ways just in trying to have more of that mindset or focus on what's going well.

And after I think after the first time I did the challenge, I realized how helpful it was for me just to focus on what I was grateful for that my wife and I decided to add it as a conversation topic in our, at the dinner table. And with our two kids w every day or every dinner we ask two questions what was your high and what was your low?

And it gives us a great time to talk. And so after that first 15 days of gratitude challenge, I talked about wifi. I was like we should add, what am I grateful for to that talk conversation, the kids. Cause I love my kids to be able to have that same focus in life about yeah. Maybe the days don't always go well, but there's always something to be grateful for.

And so that's something that they both do. My son is six, my daughter is eight and everything. Yeah. What was your high, what was your low, what are you grateful for? And they've really embraced that and it's been fun to hear what they say. Tyler, they're grateful for us. Sometimes they're grateful for friends for the mom and dad for candy, or sometimes they're grateful for video games or for stuffed animals or whatever.

It's just, it's fun to hear what they're grateful for. It's really, I really like it. Yeah,

Rizwan Javaid: I think especially during the pandemic having that as a way to appreciate where you have instead of what you've done. I think it can get us away from the thinking of, oh these things are happening with stock or just the negative part that has come with the pandemic, but look at what the, where we gained from it and what the positives are.

And yeah, I think that's, it's a good way to rewire our brains from the past few years. The challenges we've all gone through.

Mike Lamb: Yeah, absolutely. And that was one of the things I recognized for myself is suddenly going from being in the office most of the time to work at home full-time and the challenges of trying to be in meetings with kids running around or I had, I was in my annual review with my boss and my son comes in the room screaming because he, I scraped his knee or something and he was all upset.

And I was like, hold on, I'm sorry, let's pause this conversation. I go take care of my son and it's just life. But at the same time I can look at all those things saying, oh, all this is all these things didn't go well, but I also can look back and be and realize that w when else would I ever have a chance to be this involved in my kids' lives?

W w if I was in the office every day and not home I wouldn't be seeing them as much as I am. I wouldn't have them be able to invest the time with them. Like I am, I wouldn't be able to take him, drop him off at the bus sometimes pick him up from the bus and ask them how their day went and this have that engaging conversation and be invested in their lives.

And that's that's what was one of the, one of the benefits that was what can became possible with everything. And obviously the pandemic has been lots of terrible things have happened and I don't want to discount any of those, but it's also, for me, I know it's been helpful just to shift and be like, okay, and even that question, what has this made possible?

I can look at things, look at life and I can look at things that didn't go well. And I can say all these things are bad. All these things went wrong. All these things were terrible, or I can look at a challenge. What does this make possible? What are the things like? I couldn't do that. And now I can, and again, that you remove that limiting belief and you open yourself up to so many more things that you can try and go after.

Rizwan Javaid: Yeah, that's something that I'm grateful for as well. And even just the opportunities it has given me and it is, it's still challenging and in a way working from home, but it's, it has its a lot of benefits. So definitely appreciate that. And appreciate you starting the challenge because it's just a good reminder that we need to bring some more.

And it's maybe hard to get started with them because you always thinking of the same things you're grateful for, but challenging yourself to become more. Self-aware more look at your, what you have, look the people around you and try to be more present in your life instead of just going on automatic.

And so I think it gives us that opportunity

Mike Lamb: as well. Yeah, absolutely. And that gives us that chance to like you're saying, look back on your day and recognize there are good things that have happened and it's, it is difficult when you're doing a 15 day challenge to come up with 15 different things.

You're grateful for you. There's only so many times you can say you're grateful for your kids. You're grateful for the sun coming up in the morning or nice weather. But that's one of the fun, fun things about it.

Rizwan Javaid: Do you look at really looking at examining your life, your day, your how you show up? It just opens up a lot of opportunities we talked about gratitude mindset and work and career work and the life, but comes together.

There's no separation. Coming more grateful, it's going to help you be more grateful at work and, being more mindful and all those things help you grow together instead of just in

Mike Lamb: one area. Yeah, absolutely. And that, that goes back to another key point I think is that we're holistic people, right?

These where we try to just maybe sometimes focus on improvement in one area. Yeah we're holistic people. And so one area of the life improving is gonna improve others and yeah. Started being grateful in for my life at home is going, gonna impact me being more grateful at work, or maybe more grateful in my relationships for me being more grateful than this other thing.

And yeah, it's definitely it all blends together. Yeah.

Rizwan Javaid: Thinking back to your journey I feel you have to get started on that journey to be able to adjust and figure out where you really want to go. But you have to take that first step to change.

And I think that's the critical you have to be on the journey to be able to discover new things. And there's no way you can even imagine the opportunities that are out there for you. As you start that journey because the world opens up. Can you talk about some of that as your journey started and what your thoughts were there and what you're doing now?

Is that something that you even envisioned?

Mike Lamb: Yeah, I think when I first started on kind of this journey of personal growth and trying to, and figuring out what my, where I wanted to go in life a lot of there was a lot of unknowns. There's always gonna be a lot of unknowns and those unknowns can be something that you're afraid of and that you allow to prevent you've maybe from growing or from learning something new, or you can look at those unknowns as in, I'm going to embrace this.

I'm gonna step into that unknown, and I'm going to. I'm going to tackle that I'm going to, I'm going to face that fear. I'm going to move forward. And I think having as I've gone through that, I've really found again, my, my I've discovered or am finding out that I'm passionate about just helping people work through their own those that own their own fear their unknowns and finding ways for finding ways that can be the things that used to limit them are no longer true in the ways they used to live in themselves are no longer true.

And that's been a big aspect. I feel like of what I want of what my writing is about or my, what I tweet about and what I want to coach on is people identifying ways to break through those challenges. And it's finding that they can, that the Lillian beliefs, that they've had, the things that they've been living their selves and so far it doesn't have to be the only thing.

They know, their only definition. There's so much more than they could accomplish.

Rizwan Javaid: You have to start that journey because you never know where it's going to lead you that you have to be put that's go forward step-by-step you have to make that effort. And it's amazing the things that will show up for you and the things that you, the opportunities that will become a.

For you, but if you just, if you don't take that step, then all that opportunity is

Mike Lamb: lost. Yeah. Yeah. And you think about back to that analogy about the boat in the ocean. If that boat never leaves the Harbor, if that boat stays tied up it's never going to go anywhere where it's going to be at, it'll always be there.

But is that, where is that where the boat wants to be, is that where the captain wants the boat to be? And if you can get the boat, take that step, take that action of moving the boat out of the Harbor, out off the dock and out the Harbor and out into the ocean, then there's the adventure and the journey.

And I think recognizing that. We're all on that. All on the journey together, everybody is figuring out life for themselves is figuring out what they enjoy, what they don't like, what they are excited about, what they want to avoid. And knowing that sometimes it can feel lonely, but that they're everybody else's on is on a journey.

Their journey might look different, but they're also on a journey. And so I feel like there can be a community found in that as well.

Rizwan Javaid: I think that's a really big lesson is to just take that step forward and take action and see where it takes you and take, get rid of those limiting beliefs that have been put on you or you've taken on.

And so it's time to just reinvent yourself, move forward. Let's see. So I guess coming to the listener challenge part. And so in this part, I like to ask the guests to come up with a challenge for the listeners to take action on what they've heard. And so instead of just listening, they can take even a small step forward and make change in their lives. And I would love to hear what challenges you have for our business.

Mike Lamb: What I was wanting to do with this was to challenge people to do the 15 days of grants. I think that's been, I know it's been a positive change in my life, positive change in the lives of the people that have done it with me in the past. And whether it's a 15 days or five days I would challenge the listeners to even that says safe, spend the next five days, one day once a day either write down, share tweets, posts, whatever it might be, have a conversation about one thing you're grateful for.

And you realize even through that short, a short time when it's five or 15 days, where if you want to go longer, how. How you start seeing life in a different light, how you start seeing your days in a different light. So yeah the buy challenge would be to do five or 15 days of gratitude.

And if people, if listeners are interested in joining me on that journey you can search on Twitter the hashtag 15 days of gratitude. And that's something I'm trying to do about once a month. I run that challenge and I think last time I had, I don't know, maybe 20 to 30 people join I've had in the past, I've had five to 10 people, but it's been a lot of fun.

Yeah, the days of gratitude challenge I think would be a big one.

Rizwan Javaid: Awesome. Yeah, I think that's another example of you have go on that journey and you will discover amazing things. Amazing things about yourself, about others. And, but you have to take that step and you start start with five days and see how that changes you, how it revise your brain from the previous thing, type of thinking, and your default mode that you know, we kind of function to get out of that and to be more intentional, be more present, be more purposeful.

So I think, yeah, I think that's definitely something I need to do as well. And so I will definitely start that challenge because yeah it's a start you have to start there and bring more positivity in your life with more more

Mike Lamb: intention. Yeah. A hundred percent. And I think that's the key, it's just, it starts with you or with the person taking, take an action, and understanding and realizing you have the ability to take that action

Rizwan Javaid: so how can the listeners learn more about you

Mike Lamb: Yeah. I'm active on Twitter, so you can find me at the Mike Lamb is my Twitter handle. And then I have a website, Mike lamb.co Mike Lamb dot co. That's where I have the essays I've written.

My newsletter is posted on there. I'm working on getting some stuff on Instagram and Facebook, but that's still a bit of a work in progress, but Twitter and my website are the primary places. And I also like to just promote some other things I've been working on, I'm working on doing a goals template, hoping to get that out here pretty soon.

I'm wanting to start up my newsletter again. I took a pause on that due to some life changes. Kids going into school, my wife working full-time and I had to step back on something, but I'm wanting to get that starting back up. And my newsletter is called living centered and it's all focused around the things we've been talking about choosing courage facing your fear living the purposeful hustle, being grateful all those topics are ones that I talk about in my newsletter.

And yeah, check those out.

Rizwan Javaid: I really liked that. You also talked about parenting and as a parent, I can relate to those, the things you share and then the hopeful messages that you share and your experiences with your kids. And so I think we can all learn from that and. Apply those things.

And again, it's again, it's almost like a, it's a community where you learn learning from your experience and getting ideas and how we can bring those into our own lives and for the better. I liked your writing and your articles and and even your Twitter spaces. I know you're, you've definitely become active in those areas as well.

So it's great to see that you are sharing your message with people and to changing lives for the better. No,

Mike Lamb: thank you for saying that. I really appreciate it. Yeah. It's been fun. The all the Twitter spaces and all the things that I've done up to this point have all have been things that I've been afraid to do at some point or imposter syndrome kicks in, or a lack of confidence for the first few times.

And I feel like the more you do it, the more I've enjoyed it. And it seems like it's fun to find out what resonates with with the community finds a fun, it's fun to find out what resonates with people that I'm interacting with. And yeah, and I guess it's one of the plugs of Twitter spaces. I co-host a space.

Thursday mornings at 6:30 AM 9:30 PM Pacific time, nine 30 Eastern focused around goals. And then I also coast a space Friday 90. Pacific noon Eastern that's called Friday for friends and that's just, we get together and just talk and hang out very low key space. It's been a lot of fun just to have out of, we really don't have a set agenda.

Maybe we have a couple of questions we'll ask, but yeah, so two spaces, one focused specifically on goals and that's been really fun. And then the Friday for friends was also a lot of fun.

Rizwan Javaid: Awesome. Now definitely join you in one of these alternative spaces. Thank you so much for coming onto the show.

It's a pleasure and I learned a lot. I've got a challenge to do now and, but definitely just keep doing what you're doing and still being awesome. And

Mike Lamb: thank you for it. Yeah. Thank you as well. I really appreciate you having me on. I'm glad to be here. It's been, it's a great chat and yeah, I hope I can come back again soon.

Thank you very much.