Dismantling Worry: Strategies for Entrepreneurs to Keep Winning ep 136

[00:00:00] But don't you think like if you're living in such worry maybe that thing didn't happen but there must have been just it's almost like you open the gate where negative things will happen I mean you being worried all the time that is going to seep onto your family onto your kids onto your husband.

[00:00:22] Oh that's better right babe? She founded an architectural concrete company. He founded a hundred million dollar clothing company. She took the world by storm as a social media star.

[00:00:50] He took the world by storm as a famous serial entrepreneur. Together we started a business. And had babies. Now we're figuring out the best ways to do both. Join us as we learn from other entrepreneurs going through the same life struggles. As they share their life hacks about success, love, kids. And everything in between. Guys you need to hear this. It goes like this. Stop worrying about what can go wrong.

[00:01:20] Fight it about what can go right. Welcome to the Pretty and Punk podcast. My name is Dan Caldwell. And I'm Ildiko Ferenzi. You better not cut me off this time. I wasn't cutting you off. I'm sorry. Sometimes I do that. And sometimes I don't. So I forget which time that this was. And thank you Daniel for that quote. That was awesome. You're always awesome. Love you. Yeah. And today we have a great podcast.

[00:01:47] But before that, before we get into it, I first want to remind you if you're not subscribed to the Pretty and Punk podcast, please do that. And if you like this podcast, please share it with somebody who needs it. Because we know there's a lot of people out there that are going to need this one. It's an important one. And I think it's it's it came to us for a reason. We had heard somebody speaking about it. And it just hit us hit home with us because everybody has been there. Everybody has been in this position.

[00:02:17] I think we do this thing every every day, like in little little bits, sometimes more than others when there's a big life events. But why don't we tell them what we're about to go into? Exactly what I'm gonna do. The podcast is about and this is what hit us when when we heard this. The podcast is about dismantling worry strategies for entrepreneurs to keep winning. And and we just came up with that title.

[00:02:45] But it really is about dismantling worry because people you we can't help but worry. We all worry about things. Absolutely. But there's a level. We also all know somebody, somebody in our circle or somebody that we know. Hopefully they're not in our circle that are just what they call worry warts. Right. They're worrying themselves to death. Well, some of us have come from a history of that.

[00:03:12] Maybe there's someone in our family that has had, you know, gestational poverty. So some of us worry about making money or being broke. Well, it's true. I mean, I could see that. Or illness. I spoke too soon because, you know, you have too many things hit you. You're you know, you have an illness. I mean, not unlike what we went through for a minute. You know, it's like you have an illness and then another illness and then somebody else is sick and then somebody passes away. And then some happens in your finances.

[00:03:41] And then, you know, you're somebody has a car crash. There's always something coming down the pipe. And popping up. The people who figured that out, that there is always something coming down the pipe deal with it better. That's right. The people that are hoping that that isn't going to happen are the ones that are just a wreck. Right. Hey, did you know that the word worry comes from the Anglo-Saxon word worry?

[00:04:11] Sorry. Sorry. Tongue twister. Did you know that the word worry comes from the Anglo-Saxon word meaning to choke or to strangle, which is exactly what it does? I mean, that's exactly what it means. You can worry yourself sick. I'm surprised that that's what they what what the definition is. Right. I heard someone talking about it and it just like maybe it's a sign and maybe there's someone out there that just needed to hear this.

[00:04:40] And I wish I mean, I wish it's something that I heard when I needed it. So this this word worry has been popping up a lot in our family and surrounding. And then even when I heard that gentleman talking about the Anglo-Saxon meaning of the word and I was like, hey, we should really do a podcast on this. Yeah. I mean, you know, in all seriousness, and I know we we try to do podcast. We want to do podcasts that help other people. That's right.

[00:05:08] But, you know, podcasts like this even help us when we're when we're doing some research on it or, you know, having we we had a long conversation before we jumped on here about, you know, the fixes and how what the struggles we've gone through the where we've worried a little too long. And, you know, because I think, well, all worry starts with concern. Right. Yeah. It's good concern. We're supposed to be concerned about. That's right. That's right.

[00:05:37] I believe God puts thing has put something in us, like something that helps us to to protect us to worry about things, you know, that, you know, back when, you know, when we were more tribal and people had to protect themselves from grizzly bears and and warring factions, you know, other other tribes that wanted to kill them. They they there was a certain amount of worry that they had to have concern that they had to have to keep themselves safe.

[00:06:07] Yeah. And then but it's what happens is when you wallow in it for too long and it consumes you, it becomes fear and fear freezes you. Negative. Yeah. And it doesn't you aren't able to think straight. So, you know, that part of you that needs to be alert in a wall or, you know, And coming up with a solution, you literally freeze. You forget you don't you don't do those parts. Right.

[00:06:37] In the study, I didn't tell you this, but in the study, I had I looked up, you know, if there were any studies out there about about people that worry too much because there's a study on everything. Right. Right. And of course, there was a study on this, which was really interesting because I didn't. I mean, I somewhat expected something like this because it just it's believable.

[00:07:01] But it really lays out how we shouldn't be so worrisome all the time. Right. Right. And for people that have it. So Cornell University did a study. They took a group of individuals that were I mean, I'm probably having a lot of that were worrying about something that were dealing with troubles. Mm hmm.

[00:07:20] And out of those people, how many people do you think what percentage of those people found out that the thing that they were worrying about didn't even happen? That that that one thing that they were that they were killing themselves over. They were that kept them up at night. Right. And that one thing didn't even come to pass. What percentage of those people do you think out of the hundred percent?

[00:07:50] What percent of those people do you think didn't even have the problem? Oh, gosh. I just just in my heart, I feel like it's more than half. So let's say, I don't know, 75, 85 percent. Eighty five percent. Exactly right. Eighty five percent. So eighty five percent of the people didn't even have what they were worried about come to pass.

[00:08:11] And what's even more interesting is of the other 15 percent of people that it actually whatever they were worried about happened, it they dealt with it. It didn't even it didn't you know, they were able to deal with whatever problem happened to them. So they didn't even it just rolled out their back. They were able to deal with the problem.

[00:08:33] And so that means that overall, if you put those two pieces together, ninety seven percent of people had nothing to even worry about. They either dealt with the problem or it didn't even happen in the first place. So that's three percent of people actually had the problem happen to them. You know, like maybe a death or something that they couldn't control. And and it actually happened and they actually had to deal with not being able to fix the problem. Right.

[00:09:03] You're going to be negative all the time or you're just going to have this aura, this this energy about you. I think when you worry that much, you almost bring it into your life. Yeah. And you attract the negative. You attract the bad thing. So maybe that one thing it didn't happen or it won't happen, but I just really feel like living in that worry. It's going to open the floodgates to just things that are that you'd rather not welcome into your life.

[00:09:32] And another thing I just wanted to touch on for myself. I remember there was a time when I I know now I was on the wrong life path and I would worry. I just had this worry or this anxiety. I don't even know how to explain it. But don't you don't you feel like that's some kind of deeper sign? Maybe God telling you you're not on the right path.

[00:10:00] And then like I really feel like right now we are on the right life path. Right. I'm not worried. And I know I know I know that we've had a lot of really intense things happen in our life. A lot of dangers coming close to the D word and just just a lot of things where.

[00:10:26] I mean, people could literally have a nervous breakdown going through some of the things that we've gone through. If you can't deal with those types of pressures and you live in that worry constantly, it's going to tear you apart. Right. Because it'll just take you down. I mean, people there's people there's studies out there.

[00:10:51] I should have looked up this study, but there's studies out there that that you really can make yourself sick. In fact, I think part of what you were dealing with came from that. It came at a time when you were dealing with a lot. And the years of it. All of a sudden, you know, you go in and they're telling you you have something that somebody your age shouldn't have. Right.

[00:11:16] And I think it you those three years or so that you were dealing with all that stress with your business and everything. You just I think that it could have played itself out in that way. I wouldn't I wouldn't doubt it, to be honest. And there was a lot of. There has been a lot of worry in my life and worries at a young age.

[00:11:41] And I think what really got me through it is obviously my mom's mindset. But we had a lot of things happen. We've had armed robberies. We've had death, a tragic death. My brother, healthy, beautiful, smart. And 18 years old. Yeah. Just a young kid. He went to go work, do a job that my mom begged him not to do. Because we had a family business.

[00:12:11] But he said, Mom, I'm taking off the table. I want to help you in Eldico. And and isn't it crazy? Because she had this gut feeling. She said, No, I don't want you to do construction. I worked so hard in Europe. I got my hands dirty. They had a farm. So she was doing physical labor. And she just did not want my brother to do it. But it stemmed deeper. Something inside of her told her she didn't want my brother to do it. And the poor thing, he died.

[00:12:40] He died working a job. So that he could help my mom and I. But there was, I still, you know, and I have to. Right now, I'm sad. I miss my brother. I wish that he was here. But what helped me is my mom's mindset. And my mindset, because would I rather have never known him at all or have had him for

[00:13:07] the years that we had this beautiful soul that taught me so much about life, love and, you know, doing so much for others. He was the spine of the family. He took over as the father role in the family. He wanted to work. Just all these things. He was such an exceptional example to our family. So I had to sit back. And this is what helped me heal. And guys, when you have a death in the family, the pain never goes away.

[00:13:37] But, but if you think of it in this way, where would you really have never had him? So you have this pain of losing him, or would you rather have had him for the years that you had him or her or whoever in your life? You got to think of that. That is the blessing. That is the gift. And that, see, it's, it's bringing me relief right now. All this, this sadness and the, the, the pain. It's literally, I could feel it leaving my body.

[00:14:06] So you have to have a strong mind and you have to make up your mind about these things. These things are not fair. It's not fair. It's not easy, but you have to have ways of dealing with it. And for me, it's the gratitude of, of having him in my life. Yeah. I mean, I can't even imagine how hard that must have been, but it's, there's, I mean,

[00:14:33] we all have kids and we're all worried about that. Think about the kids that we have. I mean, we used to ride around without helmets on, you know, I used to ride around to race BMX and we would jump off our bike. I don't know how high we were, but we were, we were high and we, you know, I'm 10, 11 years old. I'm doing jumps that, you know, I would probably not let my kid do today, but you know, we

[00:15:00] have to like, we have to let our kids do that stuff because we can't be so worried, but we can be concerned. We can, we can, we can let that concern play out in ways that we, you know. And guide them in every way, guide them in every way. You know, listen, you need to wear a helmet. Or if you have a gut feeling, my mom had a gut feeling that whole day and he just got

[00:15:28] a new car and she thought that there was going to be something wrong with the car. So she was trying to call them all day. She actually blamed herself after. I know we're getting off topic, but the good Lord does give you a gut feeling. And, and, um, you know, if you ever have a gut feeling, definitely call and warn, warn your family. Moms have this, this intuition. I know it sounds crazy and maybe, but she had this feeling all day long to the point where

[00:15:57] she yelled at me when we were packing away the jewelry in the jewelry store to telling me to go faster. And I looked at her and I said, why, where are we going? Where do we need to go? And I remember her going all white and she said, I don't know. Like there was just something in her soul that was just urgent. And she, I can't explain it, but I think if you've ever had the experience, you know what I'm talking about. That's about it again. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[00:16:24] Um, I, I heard this or found this great quote that I know I've heard before. Um, I don't even know. It was some French guy. I can't remember. What is it? What is it? Um, it's a great quote and it really speaks to the fact that this, about, um, why we worry too much, um, that we do worry too much where he says, my life has been full of terrible misfortunes, but most of them have never happened. And it's so true.

[00:16:52] You know, when you think about like, we worry about all this stuff that's never going to happen. Almost like the, the, the study that Cornell university did, the stuff doesn't, most of the time doesn't even come to pass, but we're worried about it. We're worried about our kids, you know, hurting themselves. We're worried about our businesses not doing well. We're worried about. And more so once you've had kids, because when you're single and bootstrapping it and

[00:17:20] getting all crazy, you know, you only have to worry about yourself. But once you become a parent, it's a whole different ball game. So you can't tell me the parents don't worry at least once every day and they got to fight, fight those thoughts. It is. And there's tactics. There's tactics that we have to lean into. Some people aren't prepared for being a parent. And the same thing goes with being in business. You know, if you're going to be an entrepreneur, you have to know that things are going to happen in your life and in your business. You have to be prepared for it.

[00:17:50] But it gives you that bigger fire, that bigger push. It's not an easier journey when you have kids. It's a slower and harder journey. Right. But there's that. I can't feel. I have to do this. There's this fire inside you. Yeah. You can't. I mean, you have to get through it. Right. And you learn, you know, you start to build this mindset that I think especially as you get going, you start to deal with problems and you get past problems.

[00:18:18] I mean, now I don't worry about, I mean, I rarely worry about things. You know, it's like I think about myself. I'm like, I'm pretty, you know, not only being a police officer for years, but also running multiple businesses. I mean, I've had, I can't, I'm trying to think of any worse things that could be dealt to me as far as business goes. Right. Life and health. And those are other things. But as far as business goes, there's a lot. I mean, I can remember when my company, we had raised a bunch of money through later

[00:18:47] on, later on, we started raising some money because when you're building, when you're getting in, you know, you're starting to clear that hundred million dollar mark, you need money because you have, we have inventory. So if we were a product based business, we needed money for inventory. And we had, I think we were, we had borrowed about a $20 million and that company in 2008

[00:19:13] went belly up and they went into receivership and they called in our $20 million loan. They said, you have three months to pay us 20 million bucks. Oh. And I don't know about you, but we had no idea where we were going to get this $20 million because we hadn't, we just hadn't prepared for that. Well, yeah. You know, you're always thinking that you're going to keep growing and you're going to keep building, you're going to keep borrowing. Right. And in 2008, there wasn't a bank that you could go to that was going to say, oh yeah, we'll take you out of that problem.

[00:19:42] Yeah, we'll fix that for you. It didn't matter whether we were making money. It didn't matter. You know, we were, we could show that we were in the stores. We went to, I don't know, 50 banks trying to find money because we, and the worst thing collateral for the loan. So if we didn't pay the $20 million back within three months, they were going to take our trademark. And if we don't have a trademark, we don't have business.

[00:20:11] We would literally have, we wouldn't have nothing to sell and we'd be in violation because all the shirts that are in our warehouse were basically, uh, would have been, you know, trademark infringement because we wouldn't have been able to sell them. So we were, I mean, I was going through stress like I had never lived before. And I'd been a police officer. I'd been in a shooting. I dealt with, you know, all kinds of situations, fights, chases, a hundred mile an hour chases on the wrong side of the road.

[00:20:41] I dealt with everything. I'd never been so stressed out in my life. And for probably no good reason, you know, again, I wasn't, I wasn't, I, I didn't have what I have now. I think I was still learning. I was still going through and learning. Well, what do you, what do you think that you leaned into to not, I'm telling you, I've seen people lose money in the stock markets and they ended up in a mental institute.

[00:21:11] Like it is so incredibly intense what stress and worry and anxiety can do to you. I think we had to, we had to have, we had so many people looking at us and so many, and we had all these employees that were depending on us that we couldn't be off of our game. I had to put up a front like nothing was wrong. We didn't let any of our employees know what the situation was. Um, so really only the only, nobody else knew what I was dealing with.

[00:21:42] I didn't tell my parents. I didn't tell anybody. Yeah. And, and I was just carrying all that weight on my shoulders. I think a lot of CEOs go through that. I know in our business, we went through heavy stress and it, and it's funny that you say that you don't want to tell anyone. Like you don't want to ring the fire alarm bells because their worry is going to add to your worry. And it's just like a chain reaction, a domino effect.

[00:22:11] But they do say if you learned how to worry, and I'm saying even, even if you grew up in worry, maybe your parents divorced. So you were always worried about a bad marriage or, or as I said, you know, poverty. And then you're worried about money when you grow up, or maybe your parents weren't great parents and you worry about being a great parent. They say that if you learned how to worry, you can actually unlearn how to worry.

[00:22:40] So we're all in really, we all have some good news ahead of us. So that's important. I think, you know what? So now let's turn the corner on this. How do we, how, what are the things that we can do in our lives so that this worrying doesn't become a habit? Because I know extended times of worrying, I think I like to be in that concern zone sometimes. You know, like I like that. It's healthy. Right. It's healthy to be concerned about some something for a second.

[00:23:10] You know, like go, should I be doing this? Should we be doing that? Should we be going, should we be buying that? Should we be selling this? Yeah, absolutely. You know, should we be doing this deal? Those concerns are good. Yeah. Proofs you're not a sociopath. Well, they help you, you know, they help you be attention, you know, have that attention to detail. That's right. They help you research a little harder when you have those concerns. But I think those long tents of worrying are bad. They're not good. Yeah. It's toxic for sure.

[00:23:39] And if you live in that too long, they can affect other parts of your life. Right. That's right. Right. But it is a part of life. Worry is a part of life. It will always come. And it's your alarm bell. It's your alert. And then you have to think of how to deal with it, come up with a plan. Whatever you're going through, you need to come up with a plan and you need to deal with it. You can't be still. Well, I would say the first one. Let's go for the easiest thing to attain.

[00:24:08] And that would be physical activity. Go to the gym. A lot of, I know there's a lot of moms out here that are, you know, dealing with postpartum. A lot of dads that are at home. There's so much things that you can go do at home. Jump on the bike. Buy a bike. You could do a lot of free weight stuff. But I just think moving into physical activity and exercise releases those endorphins.

[00:24:33] And you're going to get rid of a lot of those just nasty things that are inside your body. You got to get those out. But eating healthy and the physical activity is definitely a mood lifter. I think if you're eating right and you're at the gym, there's so much to say about feeling good about yourself. Yes. If you feel good about yourself, then I think sometimes everything feels like I can deal with anything. Right.

[00:25:03] You know, it's like when I feel good about myself, I can deal with anything. That's right. And it's a healthy distraction because, I mean, I haven't had anything like that in my family. But we all know somebody that's dealt with alcoholism or drugs. And if you can lean into the physical, getting physical and eating good and just kind of obsess about that,

[00:25:27] that's a good place to be for a distraction from worry compared to the, you know, the other thing that can happen. Oh, my gosh. It's so sad. And I just got to go there for a minute because I read a post the other day of this lady. It was like this beautiful picture of her with her husband and her kids. It was a beautiful picture. It was a little video. But then I started reading it.

[00:25:53] And it was, I guess it was the last photo on her husband's phone. And she decided to share that he was dealing with alcoholism and drugs or some type of addiction. I don't know. I don't know them. It just happened to come up on my wall. And he was dealing with this secretly. And she even went into the detail how she kind of begged him to stay. But she wanted him to go because he felt like this stranger.

[00:26:22] And he said, I have to go because it's the only way I can work on myself. And she remembers, oh, I'm getting goosebumps. She remembers giving him this hug and this kiss. But it felt empty. Like she really put herself out there to help other people going through this situation. And he ended up, you know, not coming back. Like not coming back. I didn't want to say it because there could be kids. But I wanted to be clear. Right. Yeah. I mean, really? Yeah.

[00:26:51] That's hard. And you know what it is? I posted something yesterday about, you know, men, lots of times we hold stuff in. We're really good at holding stuff in. And we deal with all these problems. And we're dealing with stress. Yeah. And, you know, all these things that we're going through, whatever it might be in our life, running our businesses or, you know, trying to be good dads. The stress of trying to be a good dad sometimes will weigh on you. And we hold it all in.

[00:27:21] That's right. And when the stuff is bothering us, we tend to try to put a face on. Yeah. And then sometimes we carry that for too long until we lash out or, you know, say something that we don't mean or, you know, like this guy, we deal with it through alcoholism. Yeah. That's, that's. And then ultimately. That's painful. That's so painful. I just, I, I couldn't really relate to it, but it broke. I was literally crying because she wrote down everything.

[00:27:50] And she just said, I hope that this is able to help someone out there. Um, but I feel like as wives, our husbands have a lot going on in their lives and a lot of stress. So it is our responsibility and our obligation to pray for our husbands, to pray for their strength. I know I have my, my children and myself. I, I pray for you every night.

[00:28:18] And when you were gone just last month and it was weighing on my shoulders, alone with the kids for a whole month, but it was a blessed juggle because I, I got all that time with them. But every day we prayed, we prayed for daddy. And then in that last, last year when you were at your job and the kids and I weren't happy about it, but I didn't really vocalize it, but I just knew it wasn't the right path in

[00:28:46] my heart and we would pray for daddy every day. And he was grumpier than usual. He just wasn't happy in that position, but it's so cool that he got to do it. And what a great lesson. I'm laughing about it now because it's so funny how you know that it's not right, but as the wife, you got to support your husband and you're hating and you're like, what do you want me to do? God, are we going to have a divorce? Cause things are pretty bad. Like we're growing apart. He's doing this, he's, he's grumpy.

[00:29:16] He's grumpy because he wasn't on his life path, but I had to support. Well, I think that's important too. I think you hit on something there too. It's important is that as a spouse, we have to look at our, our spouse and, and help them not worry. Right. You know, like let them know. Sometimes we're, I'm, I might be in a better place than you. I think yesterday I even, I was saying something to you. I was like, don't worry. Yeah. It's going to be okay. Yeah. Don't worry about this. It's going to be okay.

[00:29:43] And you, you know, because I might be in a better frame of mind. That's right. And then there's times that you're in a better frame of mind. Exactly. And I think we have to help look at our spouse and ask them sometimes, how are you doing? You know, like sometimes people won't say it, especially your spouse. Yeah. Sometimes they just won't say it unless you ask them. You're right. And you really pull it out of them. Mm-hmm. And in, in a way where you show real concern, like you're real, not just asking to ask, but

[00:30:13] you show real concern. Yeah. Are you doing okay? Right. You know, are you okay? Because I'm telling you, if you're worried about that situation, it's going to work itself out. And if it doesn't, we're still going to get through it. That's right. We're going to be okay. Right. And because sometimes we build this up in our head, what it's going to look like, you know, like, oh, this is going to happen and oh, and then what that's going to happen. And the truth is we build it up probably, you know. Worse than it is.

[00:30:42] A thousand times worse than it actually is. Oh my gosh. Like when, I don't know, for example, when, well, when Daniel, I've got like a million, Hey, I've got a million examples. We all have a million examples. But say somebody gets hurt and you're already imagining the MRI or the x-ray or whatever it is. And you have to like stop yourself. Stop it. We're going to be okay. We're going to be okay. And you just have to have that positive. Like when you were screaming at me when Daniel fell off the bed.

[00:31:11] Yeah, that's what I was thinking. And I was nowhere around. Oh my. No. You told me you were going to come to bed and you stayed downstairs because I said, I'm so tired. We were sleepy and I'm sure a lot of parents have gone through this. For sure. No, but I said, I'm so tired. I'm going to fall asleep. So I built up a bunch of pillows on the side where Dan sleeps.

[00:31:38] And I was just holding on. I'm so tired. First time mom. I'm breastfeeding all day long. I said, Dan, please promise me you're going to come to bed because the baby sleeps in the middle of us. And I know we're going to get it because we're co-sleepers. Yes. And yes, you're supposed to have the baby in the crib, but he won't sleep in the crib. So I guess he didn't fall asleep. I fell asleep because I was exhausted.

[00:32:04] Dan stayed down to watch some stupid, I don't want to say the word. It was a game. No, you were watching like the zombie something or other. No, it was not. But I woke up to the sound of my baby hitting the floor. And I just remember screaming and all this rage. Like, yeah. Is he? You know, those little things that come out on the side, like, you know, like the veins,

[00:32:29] the veins, like you had like the whole, your whole, I was so scared. And you like were mad at me for like, it must, at least a week. Like you didn't talk to me. Yeah. Well, because it could have been so much worse. And, and he, you know, he didn't really cry. He was quiet. He had this brute little hematoma. We went to the hospital. But then we also had to make the decision.

[00:32:56] Well, I'll tell you the truth, guys. The truth is that mommy was mad at daddy for at least four hours. Well, she was definitely mad at me longer than that, buddy. Yeah. You were this. You were my baby. You were a little tiny baby. You were my baby. You were just a teeny tiny baby.

[00:33:23] Maybe like four months, five months. I don't know. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So let's get, let's, let's get back on track because we're horrible at like sidetracking here. What are some other things that we can do to like, you know, to, to not be in that worry state of mind all the time and to get ourselves out of that. Well, I would, I would say the use of positive affirmations and that's just talking yourself through it.

[00:33:53] Pushing yourself out of that mental state that you're in. Focus on the Bible verses. Talk yourself through it. This is the time to pep talk yourself, to be your coach. And pray. Well, absolutely. I'm getting to that. But I want it. I have another, I have another point at the end, which is prayer. And that's going to be the last point. But this positive affirmation, it's almost like talking to yourself.

[00:34:23] Like when it gets bad, literally say it out loud. Like go the opposite direction. Do not let yourself spiral. And yes, of course, prayer. But now I almost want to go to the last point. But, but prayer does something that is going to be, so guys, make sure you're listening to this. But for me, my mom and for Dan, prayer did something. I'm just going to, I'm just going to talk about it.

[00:34:51] Okay, so the positive affirmations. Talk yourself out of it. But there's something very powerful that prayer has done for me in my life. There was, I mean, I've watched my mom pray over us all of our lives. And she talked about the power of prayer for herself. She's had a lot of really serious, she had polio as a little girl. She couldn't walk for many, many months.

[00:35:21] She wasn't supposed to walk again, but she did. Prayer got her out of that. She had very, very serious surgeries. I think she had 12 surgeries altogether. So my mom was sick a lot, which is why I share that story about at 13. She encouraged me to start my own business because she was worried about her health. She didn't think she'd live for a long time, but she did. She did great.

[00:35:46] When I was, I ended up getting this stupid bug from my animal, probably kissing my animal and stuff. I got H. pylori and I got it really, really, really bad. So you can have it mildly. Well, it affected me to the point where I lost a lot of weight and I was really, really sick.

[00:36:10] And I remember not, I felt like, I felt like I wasn't going to make it. And I remember my mom coming over and she came into my bed and I said, Mom, this is, it's contagious. It's contagious. We all, everybody that's had it, we know that, that it's contagious. I was on antibiotics to get rid of it.

[00:36:36] But I was so worried about her and she said, no, you're my daughter and God's going to protect me. I'm not going to get it. But she prayed over me. I remember telling her, I don't think, I feel like I'm not going to make it. I lost a lot of weight and I was so sick fighting this thing. And I remember she prayed over me and I felt like, I felt this supernatural peace and I felt

[00:37:04] like I could just feel the pain melting. And I knew from that day, the sun shone bright into the room. And I knew from that day on that I was going to get better from this thing that I was dealing with. And I did. So there's some kind of very supernatural power that can come from prayer. You can heal yourself.

[00:37:27] The second time that I noticed it so strongly and even stronger was when I was going in for life's life's saving surgery, I wasn't going to do it. And it was weird because I met this woman two days. I was doing everything I can to fight this C word. I was doing everything natural.

[00:37:56] I didn't want to do the surgery, to be honest, you guys. And I think we've gone into this on another episode and they wanted me to do chemo and all these other things and I opted out on the two of them. But I met this lady when I was doing IV and it's so weird because she was another doctor and she sat down beside me and she said, you're terrified. And I said, what do you know? Well, I mean, what do you mean?

[00:38:23] Because I was smiling and, you know, trying to hide it, right? Trying to hide it. You're going through big life. The doctors are telling you some really intense stuff. You have brand new babies and they're telling you the opposite of what you want to do. Live forever. Yeah. So. Destiny wasn't even a year old yet. No, she was just like weeks old. And we get this news and I and she tells me you're terrified.

[00:38:52] And she said, you need to think about you need to imagine yourself as though this thing has already happened. The miracle has already happened. You need to pray and you need to imagine something. And I was like, oh, imagine myself getting better. No, something more powerful than that.

[00:39:12] And it was all the way to the point of me imagining destiny, imagining her walking down the aisle and getting married. Because then I have to be better and healthy and abundant because I got to pay for this thing. Daniel's hugging me right now.

[00:39:40] So I go in to tell the doctors that I'm not going to do the surgery and I'm going to do this whole thing. I'm going to do this whole thing. What is it, baby? So this episode is about not worrying. Yeah. So we know that it's not about worrying. So maybe I should say some things about not worrying. Okay.

[00:40:05] Like about when the doctor said you're really worried and I heard that you, that plane, about that you said you were, that something about plane. So maybe if someone has the C word, which is the bad word, if someone has the C word, you should not be worried. Just pray over them. That's what you do. And then they get better.

[00:40:35] Worrying doesn't help it up. Well, all that worrying does is making it worse. That's right, buddy. That's true, Daniel. How many times did we pray over mommy? Daniel, Daniel. Listen, Daniel was a huge part of my healing journey. Even the day before I had to go. What's? Daniel, you're so on point. That's right. Yes. Daniel, you're so on point because you were the one telling me.

[00:41:04] Worrying is contagious. Yeah, Daniel would tell me. He was two and a half years old and he would look at me in the eyes and he'd say, Mommy, you're going to be okay. In his little baby language, you're going to be okay. You're going to do this. God is watching over you. Destiny even sometimes when, say, I get worried for a moment. My little destiny, the baby destiny says, God is watching over us. You're going to be okay.

[00:41:34] They said it over grandma. They would pray over grandma. So anyway, back to the story. And I just wanted to touch on this because it is so powerful. And to me, because I really didn't think that I would be in that state of mind. Now, I went into the doctors a day that I was supposed to have surgery and I told them I'm opting out. They told me a lot of facts and they said, you know, you can try that.

[00:42:03] You can try that thing that you're thinking about. You could do that. It's going to take several months to notice a difference. But if it doesn't work. You said you may not have several months. Right. If it doesn't work and you come back, we can't do this thing that we want to try to do. And then you can't do the chemo. If you remember, right before we went to the hospital, we prayed in your kitchen. And right as soon as we finished, the sun shined right in our eyes. Yeah.

[00:42:33] And we just, we both. The clouds parted. Yes. I mean. The clouds parted. And I know in my heart today that no matter what the decision was, I knew at that moment in the morning that everything was going to be okay. No matter what decision I was going to make.

[00:42:55] So when he said, if you do this, it might not, it did scare me. So he also said, when you go to do this thing, it's going to take you the three months. You're not going to be with your kids. That's what triggered me. I said, do what you got to do. Do it today. I still believe that I'm going to do the other stuff. I was still on my, in my mind, I knew I was going to do the other stuff, but I was scared.

[00:43:24] They were going to take parts of my body out. They were going to take my vital organs. How am I supposed to function? I understand gut health. I understand all that stuff. I was majoring in that. I'm on magazine covers for health, for fitness, and this is happening. And they're going to change my body around. And number two, they're going to leave me with scars. And I was doing bikini shoots and I was really big and really great at it.

[00:43:51] But I knew that that was God's way of saying, this isn't your life path, honey. I'm going to give you these scars because that's not your life purpose. That's not your life path. So I just remember all these thoughts going on in my head and I was, I was panicking. I remember asking him, do you believe in God? I don't want anyone touching my body that doesn't. And he says, I can't answer that. Dang it. I knew the answer. And I said, that's okay.

[00:44:20] Cause God is going to be moving through your, your hands to heal me. And he looked at me like I was a little bit loony tunes, but that's okay. You know, I think what, and what helped us so much through that and what helps people too, is not just people that are dealing with something at that level. Right. If you, if you use prayer to help, you know, you're worrying about your business, about things that are going on in your life, your marriage, whatever that might be. It just levels you out.

[00:44:50] There's something about when you get done with that prayer. But just, I got it. I got it. Just, I got to add this to, I got to add this and I know it's a long story, but I'm the person, I'm very OCD when it comes to controlling my health and controlling everything. And at that moment, at that moment, I knew I had to give somebody else the control. And the night before, what did I dream?

[00:45:16] I had a horrible nightmare that something went wrong on the operating table. I don't want to get into it, but it was awful, awful, awful, awful, awful, awful. So I, I even had Dan and the kids not there because I made my mind up that I wasn't getting the surgery. So they weren't there. And then I had to go in alone. And he told me, looked me in the eyes and said, this is a very serious surgery.

[00:45:45] You might not make it. He had to say that. He had to say that. He told me that too. He had to say it. He told me that too. This is a big deal. I'm changing everything around. And I didn't want to tell you. Yeah. I was in there for eight hours because of the complication. But let me tell you what happened before when they, they, they scrubbed me. Because I said, I ate, I did everything so that I didn't have to do the surgeries. Like, it's okay. We're going to take you in anyway. They cleaned me up. They put me on the thing.

[00:46:15] I was shaking. My jaw was shaking. And I just started praying. I know when you guys were in the hotel, I know my mom was praying for me and her prayers are so powerful. And I just remember laying on that, that bed. It was cold. I was naked. Obviously you have the gown on.

[00:46:37] And I remember this peace coming over me and I felt warm and I felt this most beautiful, even more powerful than that other time. I felt this supernatural peace, this peace. I felt like these warm arms around me. And I just thought so deeply of destiny and her wedding day. And I felt so happy and so peaceful.

[00:47:05] And they were looking at me like it was not, because I was scared and I should have gone down this opposite route. And I was just so peaceful. And I just gave everything to God. And I said, you're going to have to do it all. And I felt so peaceful. That's the whole story. But I'm just saying like sometimes you're not going to have any control and prayer is so powerful. Yeah, I think. And like I said, no matter what you're dealing with.

[00:47:34] No matter what. That was, that's a huge, that's a big thing. But sometimes the small things that you're worrying about, the little things that you're worrying about in life. Give it to God. And he will just take that worry away. Yeah. I think it's a big, huge help. But I'll throw in something else. Just my, my, some of mine, not that I don't use prayer. Of course I do. Yeah. And we do every night and every morning. Absolutely.

[00:48:00] But the one thing that I like to do, and I'll just throw it in there as an extra, is whenever I'm going through something, what do I do? Do you know? Do you know? Can we say this on? No, no, no. I'm just joking. Get your mind out of the gutter. I'm just joking. Oh my goodness. Okay, what is it? What is it? Don't even look at me like that. What is it? Oh.

[00:48:28] Something about going to watch a movie by myself. Yeah. Or with you or. Yeah. The kids. Or something about getting, watching a movie. It just like takes me out of whatever's going on in my life for a second. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of like talking yourself out of it. You're distracting yourself in a way. I'm just totally distracting myself. And I come back and I'm just grounded. Oh, that's great. I don't know why it helps me. And the better the movie is, you know, the more it takes me out of into some fantasy world. Yeah, that's good.

[00:48:57] Or even some biopic, you know, where I'm watching somebody else's success because there's always going to be something where they're down for a second. Right. And then they find their way back. Uh-huh. And that just takes, ah, whatever I'm dealing with, I can do this. They say comedy is really healthy when you're going through stuff. Yeah. Like a funny movie or going to see comedy. Whatever it is. Yeah. Find what fits you. Laughter therapy. Yeah. Laughter. Oh my gosh, I forgot about that. Yes. Laughter therapy is a huge thing.

[00:49:26] Or a good war movie. No, no. Hey, this is a guy's point of view, okay? It's what helps me. Okay. I guess- Everybody's got to find their own movie genre. Right. Right. Okay. So my other thing, my others, before we went to the last, but gratitude. I feel gratitude is something that- That's true. It scares you. If you do gratitude every day, and we do this as a family, we do prayer and gratitude,

[00:49:54] and we talk about the things that we're thankful for, even when things are bad and you have to worry, there's always something to be grateful for, to be thankful for. Gratitude is like a vitamin. Absolutely. Like, if you just do it every day, and you're just grateful for what's going on in your life- We have clean water. We ate today. You're not concentrating on- We're breathing. Whatever's not going well for you in your life. That's right. I mean, I think that, and that's just, yeah, that's just the vitamin that fixes your life every day. Right. Right.

[00:50:23] Because, I mean, for me, for me, I have things that I could focus on, like things are a little different in my body right now, and I could focus about that, and I could panic about it, or I could be just so great. I'm so grateful that I'm here. I'm looking at my babies grow up every day. I'm so, so, so lucky. I'm so, so lucky. And I have my husband, and I'm breathing, and I'm getting through this thing,

[00:50:50] and people can look to me as an example of, dang, if they did that to her, I'm going to be okay. Because looking at me, you wouldn't know, and I think that that's the beautiful miracle that happened, is that you wouldn't really know unless I were to share my story, and then you're like, dang, I had no idea. I think gratefulness, and we're grateful every day for so many things in our life. I think everybody who listens to this, I'm sure you can find a hundred things

[00:51:20] a day that you're grateful for. Yeah. But if you just find at least five every day, just say five to yourself or out loud, or say them with your kids. Just say out loud what you're grateful for. Or when, yeah, that's right. And when a worry is coming, you say it in your head. You say that gratitude. For me, I give my kids three things every single morning, three things that you're grateful for, and then obviously closing the day. What went well? What could you do better?

[00:51:48] Those things that distracts you from the things that you could be worried about. I think gratefulness was a great last one. No, well, wait. There was one more. There was one more. And that was just cutting people that aren't supposed to be in your life anymore. Sometimes you feel worry when you're around negative people, or people that you know are just, they're not meant to be in your journey anymore. That can cause worry. Or people that worry too much. Right.

[00:52:19] I mean, there's only so much you could do for them. But if you're not careful, that can drag you down. Or how about people that worry for you? Like, I'm so worried about your business is going to fail. Oh, gosh, yes. You're probably not going to make it. Oh, yeah, yeah. Those days. Those people do not need to be in my life. All right. Don't worry about me. I got this in my head. Like, please don't. But then when you do well, but then when you do well,

[00:52:48] I knew you were going to win the whole time. I know. I get counting people write me, written emails about those things. That's awesome. Anyways, I hope you guys got something from this podcast. Oh, I hope so. I know we did. I think just talking through it sometimes helps remind us about some of the things that we can do better. And I feel so good. I feel like even you guys, if you have someone to talk to, if you're going to therapy, you have a counselor,

[00:53:16] or even just talking to, you know, who God provided us with, our spouse or our parents, but especially our spouse. I mean, our spouse is who we have to lean into. And, you know, pray for them. Pray for that closest. I know it's a tango. We sometimes we grow apart and then we get back. I mean, remember us last year? We were growing apart and I had resentment secretly, but I couldn't say it. What?

[00:53:45] Am I just hearing about this? Well. No, I do. I heard about it. Well, at the end. Don't worry. I heard about it. At the end. After the, at the end, he literally is so crazy, guys. So I'm praying this prayer and he comes home from work. I said, God, give me a solid sign, like a solid sign. Not like, oh, maybe. He came home from work and he said, I'm done. I'm done.

[00:54:15] I hated it. I was like, woohoo. This is awesome. I just felt like I was being dragged a different direction. It's okay. That wasn't. And that's, that's a sign. It wasn't your life purpose. And I really feel so good. Even if we could just touch one person today, just one, even if one, I know that that doesn't happen. Usually we do touch more, but even if we touch that one person that needs it, that's going through grief, that's going through worry, that's going through an illness, that's going

[00:54:44] through marriage problems, whatever it is. Remember, it cannot rain forever. The sun always comes out to shine on you. And we all have ups and downs. We all have days of worry. Yes. It never ends. So you just need to know how to deal with it. And if you have a different way of dealing with it, please send it to us so we can implement it in our lives.

[00:55:09] Guys, on a serious note, if you guys are dealing with something and it feels like that it's just too much to deal with and you're holding it all in and you're thinking that Thoughts. There's kids. There's kids. Yeah. You can't figure out a way out. And you need to speak to somebody. Absolutely. You need to call a crisis hotline.

[00:55:34] You can call 988, kind of like 911, but you can call 988 and get a crisis counselor on the phone and have a conversation. Yeah. And I hope you can talk to somebody that you love that's close to you about it. But if you can't and that's your last resort, you need to talk to somebody. God gave you a gift and you need to live out that gift. We all have a God-given journey. Yes.

[00:56:02] People make decisions, quick decisions that could have been fixed. A thousand percent. Oh my. They're not a decision that can't be taken back. That's right. So please talk to somebody. And if you need to talk to us, if it's that bad. We're here for you. Well, we hope something here helped you. Yes. Or at least made you think. Or at least maybe there was a little tool in there that will help you get through the

[00:56:32] worry. But don't worry. Be happy. Destiny said that. We weren't going to say that during the podcast. Destiny said it. We both said it. Yeah. Destiny said it. And we just said, we're not going to use that during the podcast. And we both said it just now. Great. Okay. If you want to get a hold of us, check us out on Instagram and some other places. I'm still trying to remember at Pretty and Punk Podcast and on YouTube at Pretty and Punk

[00:57:01] Podcast TV. And we'd love to hear your comments. We thank you so much for the people that are leaving comments. Again, we've said this many times, but we read all the comments to our kids. Because the kids want to hear it. So if you're, even if your children have something to say, Daniel and Destiny are always like, did we get it? You see how Daniel jumped in? He listens to the whole podcast. They're sitting there listening. They're so sweet. Because they want to hear everything that we're doing. And we hope that it helps them too. And we thank you guys for listening.

[00:57:31] Please share this podcast if you think it can help somebody. Please subscribe if you haven't already. And we'll talk to you on the next one. God bless. Take care. Thank you for listening. I hope that changed your life. Don't worry. Be happy. God bless. See you next time. Please subscribe.