Welcome to the Get a Six-Figure Job You Love and Thrive podcast. This is Natalie. This is episode 237, proactive versus reactive career strategy and a different take on reactive. So stay tuned.

Hey there, I’m Natalie Fisher. I’m a six-figure business builder, a mom of a two-year-old, the recover of a 10-year narcissistic relationship and now in a super healthy one. And most of all, I’m a human who’s figuring this out with you. This podcast is about how to use your mind to thrive in your career and create the subconscious breakthroughs that you need to get there. The subconscious blocks that you don’t even know you have to achieving your highest levels of earning and your best zone of genius moments and days in the flow. That is my goal for you. Let’s dive into the episode. And before we dive into today’s episode, just one more thing.

I’m the coach who will always point you back in the direction of your own wisdom. And so before you listen to my episode or anybody’s episode, I want to remind you of that because I know from a lot of personal experience that anything is only as effective as the amount of resonance that it has within your uniquely built brain with how it’s going to blend with your experiences, with your history, with your past, with your existing beliefs. And so something is only going to work if it feels right to you and you believe in it, or you want to do the work to believe in it.

And that’s where I can help you. Your inner wisdom is infinitely more valuable than mine or anybody else’s for that matter, when it comes to getting the outcomes that you are here to get. I’m happy that you’re here. I’m glad that we’re on the planet at the same time, and I can’t wait to help you transform your life and career.

Hello, hello. Okay. I’m excited to talk to you today. First, I want to let you know that I have three events coming up this week. Two are going to be completely free coaching calls. These are calls that I usually do inside my community where we meet weekly and we work through blocks, stuck points, questions, so that we can just get you moving and in the right direction so you’re not wasting any time on overthinking or being blocked or basically what we do to sabotage ourselves. We’re clearing all that stuff. So what I thought I would do this week is I’m opening it up to everybody.

So I looked through my data from last year and the most popular things I did. And it turns out you all loved these free coaching calls that I did. So I did a few of the, a few free open calls so anybody could come. And it’s not something I do very often, but I’m doing it this week in preparation for what’s coming up the next week. And I’m hoping that you all want to come and get some coaching from me. So last time I did it, we had about 50 participants show up and then we had everyone, we had people who wanted coaching raise their hand.

So the way that it works is you raise your hand and I will bring you on. I’ll bring as many people on as I can within the hour of time that we have allotted, and we’ll work through a problem that you’re having right there. And then just me and you, we will be in a room accompanied by our community, fellow folks that are joining us, but it will be just me and you, and I’ll be able to help you work through whatever stuck point you have using some of my coaching tools, which is what I love to share with the world. So please join us for that. There will be a link in the comments or in the show notes, and there will be two times available. So you can pick whichever one works for you. And if you can’t attend, there’s always a replay.

I’m not a fan of FOMO. So I try to do replays, like I will do replays forever if I might not keep them up forever, but you’ll have a replay. You’ll have the opportunity to watch it if you want to. So that’s one cool thing happening this week. And then the other thing I’m doing this is I’m sharing a free class on the shortcut to the job hunt. If there ever was one, this is it. And that’s happening on Wednesday at 10 a.m. Pacific time. Join us for that.

I’m going to be talking to you about my experiences with shortcuts in the job hunt, shortcuts in my business. And I’ve distilled everything down to the most crucial steps as to how we create these shortcuts and some strategy, a lot of mindset, a lot of examples. And just so you are not wondering, the shortcut is about communicating with people, reaching out to people and doing it in a way that feels amazing, that it feels like fulfilling. It doesn’t feel icky or transactional. That’s the thing I get. Mostly people don’t want to do it because it feels transactional.

So that’s my goal is to take out that from the whole equation so that you can actually do it in a way that feels amazing. So you’ll do more of it and you’ll have faster results. So those are the two things going on. If you would like details for those, check out the links in the show notes. It’ll be free coaching calls and the shortcut to your job hunt. Those will be available.

All right. So let’s get into the episode. Today I’m talking about proactive versus reactive strategies. And actually I want to share a really different take on reactivity. So the reason this came up is a lot of clients that I have and a lot of posts on LinkedIn, like the advice that is being shared out there is, oh, always make sure that you have a safety net, make sure that you save this amount of money, make sure that you’re doing this, make sure that you’re doing that. And so society is kind of telling us, you know, if you don’t do these things, then you’re a bad person, you have done things wrong, you have screwed up, you should have done blah, blah, blah. Right. And it creates a narrative for people who haven’t done that. It can create a lot of shame, right? People can lead to feeling shame, regret, ultimately spinning in things they can’t change.

So I had one client and she was like, you know, I felt really bad because I got laid off and I didn’t have that three month cushion of expenses that I was supposed to have. And then people, when they get laid off thinking, oh, I should have been networking this whole time. I should have been doing this. I should have been applying for jobs. I should have been keeping my resume updated. And so, and it’s like, yes, maybe we can do that stuff.

We do have the ability to do that stuff. But what happens when we don’t or when we haven’t? Right. And also it’s impossible to be able to predict everything. Like no matter how prepared you are, you can’t be prepared for everything. You just can’t. It’s not humanly possible. So we are going to have to deal with some things reactively anyways. And so just to be clear, this episode is not saying that we shouldn’t be proactive about preparing for things. Absolutely. But I’m somebody who hasn’t always been like that. So I’ve succeeded in a way where I haven’t done any of that stuff, even though technically I was quote unquote supposed to. And I want to share a little bit about why I don’t think that being reactive is a terrible thing.

Now, here’s the thing. I’ve talked to other clients and they are very proactive. They have their financial ducks in a row. They have their emergency savings. They have their stuff and they have done a very diligent job of doing that. Right. So that’s how they have conducted their stuff. That’s their personality. And so that’s great too.

However, I just want to share like that it’s not the only way. Right. So for those of us who didn’t always do that or who didn’t always have, you know, the foresight to do that or the education to do that or the knowledge to do that, that there is actually a really great way to look at it when you don’t have that. Right. So basically I want to share that there’s no right or wrong. Right.

So if you are like that, that’s great. Good for you. I’m jealous of you a little bit, but also I know that it’s okay as well on the other side of it, because you can figure things out. It’s all in how you think about it. So it kind of irritates me that society is always telling us to do that stuff and then we’re shamed when we don’t. It’s like, yes, it’s useful information, but when you find yourself in a situation that you couldn’t have prepared for or that you didn’t prepare for, for whatever reason, there is no use in beating yourself up for that. Right. There’s absolutely no, nothing gained from having thoughts like I should have done that better. I regret not saving that money.

I regret not doing that. I’m ashamed of myself for not having a better, like a better planning or better foresight, or I regret not doing that. There’s absolutely zero, zero to be gained from that emotionally, because all it does is puts you in emotional place where you are feeling bad. And when you are feeling bad, when you are feeling ashamed or regretful, or even just guilty for not having done something, you are not going to be in your most successful mode. Okay. So that’s the first thing.

But what most people do is they will beat themselves up and they will spend energy there and they won’t take action from the best place. So what will normally happen is if they leave this unchecked, like without getting coaching on it, they will start to feel really bad and then just start to take frantic action from a negative place, from negative emotion, from like panicked emotion, from like, so let’s say like the obvious example, someone’s laid off, right? And this is often what happens. Even if they do actually have a financial question, this happens a lot anyway, right? Like even if I talk to a client and financially they are okay for maybe even a long while, they can still get panicked because that’s just how the brain works. It’s like, oh, oh, danger. My fake security net is gone. I got to hurry up to get it, to replace it. And truly there’s no, there’s nothing secure. No company is secure. No job is secure.

No business is secure. Nothing is secure. The only thing that is secure is our ability to trust ourselves to figure out whatever we need to figure out for our greater good, our ability to cause things to happen. That is the actual security. So when people beat themselves up or they simply go into that reactive mode from a negative place, it causes franticness. It causes rushed, hurried energy, needy, desperate energy, scarcity energy.And it’s very unpleasant to take action from that place. It feels awful, like anxiety ridden, right? And what happens with that is usually panic breeds more panic, more scarcity breeds more scarcity. You focus, what you focus on, you get more of, right? So essentially that’s what the pattern is going to be.

That’s the normal human brain pattern if we leave it unchecked, right? So nothing wrong with it. It just doesn’t serve us as a lot of us have experienced, right? It’s like, I like to use dating analogies. If for example, we were dating in a panicked, desperate, hurried mode, like, oh my God, I have to find someone to be with.

Otherwise, my survival is at stake. That’s felt by the other person. It won’t attract a very high quality person. It won’t attract a high quality relationship because it’s just born out of desperation, franticness, or neediness. And people will say to me, the argument that I always get is, well, yeah, you just got to take something. You just got to take anything until you can, so that you can pay your bills.

Some people just have to do that. And my response to that is, you’re going to pay your bills either way. You decide how you’re going to pay them with your mindset. So let’s assume that’s true because you do have a very strong survival mechanism. So you can either, you can take that franticness and run with it. You can use that panic and breed more panic, or you can think of it this different way.

So the way that I want to share with you today, which was the point of this whole episode. So if you find yourself in a situation where you feel you’re reactive, this can actually be great. This can be the best thing that ever happened to you because necessity also breeds creativity. It also breeds focus. It also breeds bigger things than have ever been created before. It can, right? So if we switch it from this desperate panic energy to this expansive energy, it can actually create a better life, a more expanded possibility, a bigger opportunity, many of them than you had before. Okay. And it’s all in the mindset. Now I’ve done this several times, so I’m not afraid of being in reactive mode.

I actually think that me being in reactive mode is a good thing because it always expands me. So let’s say you get laid off, for example, and instead of thinking, oh my God, I have to hurry to find something else. My bills need to get paid. What if I lose my house? What if blah, blah, blah? What if this, what if that? All those panic, needy, desperate thoughts. Instead of those, you can opt for a different way of thinking. Here it is. You can think, okay, this is a tough spot. This can actually push me and expand me into an even greater opportunity. I didn’t like that place I was working at anyway.

I didn’t like how they let me go. That was all really unfair. This is all pushing me to an even better situation. This has happened for me. This is the greatest thing. I am ready to rise to this challenge. I couldn’t be more ready and excited to rise to this challenge. I have been given this challenge for a reason because it is supposed to create something exponentially better in my life. This is going to be a test of my mental fortitude. It’s going to be a test of my mental creativity. It’s going to use more of my mental resources than I’ve ever used before. But this is why this is going to be the greatest thing that ever happened. And it is going to be so worth it. And I am so happy that this happened, right? You can actually choose that instead. Now, this is something that I have worked.

I feel like I’ve probably been on coaching calls a lot when I’ve gone into it. And I started with like, oh my God, what if this, what if this? I’m panicked, blah, blah, blah. And I’ve been able to turn it around and I’ve had help from coaches. They’ve helped me turn that around. But that narrative, the one that I just gave you, has fueled me into some of the most amazing experiences ever. It has actually raised business. It has caused me to create opportunities before that I never would have created. And it creates them out of a place of power. So instead of a place of needy, desperate, I must take whatever I can get.

I have to do this now. Instead, it’s like playing to win instead of playing to lose. Even when you look like you’re in a losing situation, right? That’s the best way to describe it, I think. It’s like, because when you get into the panic, fear, needy, desperate, rushed, panicky energy, you’re playing not to lose. Basically, you’re like, I’m drowning and I need to keep my head above water. Basically, when you get laid off, you feel like they’ve just dumped you in the ocean and you are drowning.

And you’re like, oh my God, I got to work so hard. I got to keep my head above water. Oh my God, what if I die, right? Instead, if you are laid off and they throw you in the water and you think, oh, this is so refreshing. Or you think, like, it’s like those people who love a cold plunge versus those people who hate a cold plunge. Like, you can have that pattern interrupt in your brain where you’re like, oh my God, my body is feeling this pattern interrupt. I am in this water. And that experience is neither good nor bad. It is just the meaning that you decide to give it, right? So most people will give it that meaning of this is terrible. Oh my God, panic.

What’s going to happen? I’m going to have to give up all this stuff. I’m going to have to, you know, they go to the worst possible scenario instead of where you could also go, which is a situation that is the same. Like the circumstance is the same. You’ve been thrown in the water, but the water can actually make you a really strong swimmer. It can make you the person who’s able to build a raft on the way. It can make you the person who’s able to become the captain of your own raft. It’s not for many people or the captain of your own ship. It can make you into the person who creates out of that necessity that you’ve been given this opportunity to create out of necessity. And that can be the most amazing thing, right? So this is the way that I think about challenges.

And I’ve realized that because I have been in lots of uncomfortable situations that I didn’t prepare for, and I voluntarily put myself in uncomfortable situations, that I just get better at thinking about how I’m going to solve them, how I’m going to get better, how I’m going to get more resilient, how I’m going to get more creative, how I’m going to get smarter, how I’m going to use this situation to push me into the version that I want to be, right? And so the reason why we might resist this so much is because we like our comfort. As humans, we like our comfort and we usually will do anything to maintain that comfort, right? So that’s why we don’t want to have these uncertain situations presented to us. We would rather have everything the same expected, like everything be secure all the time, right? But that’s not the way that the world works.

So if we’re going to thrive in the world, we want to get better at dealing with unexpected situations, things that come at us, right? And I’m not saying that things are not really challenging sometimes. Of course, they’re going to be really challenging sometimes, and we’re going to have some heavy emotions to feel sometimes, and that’s all okay. But the underlying narrative that you choose can still be, I cause things to happen.

I’m the one who’s in control here. Yes, this happened. Who do I want to be now? What do I want to do now? How do I want to make this into the greatest thing that ever happened to me? How do I want to view this situation in a way that can actually expand me into more of who I want to be? How is this situation actually going to get me into the place I’ve always wanted to go, the better place I needed to be? How did this happen for me? Right? So these are always things that you can choose, right? But the default, your brain default is going to be, unless you work on it consistently and you are aware of it, the default is going to be, oh my God, this is bad.

Panic, panic, panic. Frantic, frantic. Rush around. Do, do, do, do. Don’t put much thought into it. Just do. Just keep busy. Just keep going. Just get something. Just do get something to make yourself feel secure. Anything. Do something to make yourself feel secure. Make yourself feel busy. Make yourself feel productive. Anything. And from that space, the best things are not born. And from that space, that’s where the mindset is actually born of the, oh, well, some people have to pay bills. So we can’t just afford to do whatever we want. We have to pay bills. And it’s like, you’re going to pay your bills anyway. Okay? You always have. You always will. You’ve always figured that out. You’re here listening to this podcast. You always did figure out a way. You’re going to figure out a way again. Now, the way in which you figure it out from the place in which you figure it out, that’s up to you.

So I’ve given you two options. Okay? You can pick the mindset that causes you to feel needy, panic, anxiety. You can pick the mindset that causes you to feel powerful and ready to expand, even though that’s uncomfortable. And the analogy of the caterpillar turning into the butterfly comes to mind. It’s like, that’s not a nice process. Like, and giving birth to a human being, that’s not a nice process.

It’s not very comfortable, but that’s what breeds more beauty into the world. Right? And sometimes these situations are the birth of something new for us. And that birth isn’t always comfortable, but it doesn’t always mean it’s the worst thing in the world. Right? Having given birth, I know that that experience was excruciatingly painful, but I also know that I did have control over it. And I even asked the midwife, I’m like, so I have control over how fast this goes? And she’s like, well, yeah, in a way you do. And as soon as I heard her answer, I was like, okay, we’re getting this done.

And I had a really fast experience. Like I was only in labor for 12 hours start to finish all the way through, which I was told was very fast. They said that most women would have taken twice that long and that I did it really fast. And I just had to ask that question. I had to be like, so I am in control of how fast this goes. She looked at me. She’s like, yeah, you do have a lot of control over how fast this goes. So, but it’s not to say it wasn’t challenging. It wasn’t painful. It wasn’t like, I could look back and say that it was awful, but what it gave was something amazing, right? And it can be the same with any process that you experience. So it could be a layoff. It can be an unexpected financial turn.

It can be anything that happens to you that seemingly the default brain wants to tell you is the worst thing that’s ever happened, can be birthed into something amazing. Now, I don’t want to say that again, it’s not going to be painful or challenging because we do go through challenging situations in our lives. And when I created this episode, I’m mostly talking about like finances and layoffs. So that’s where my head is at. Just in case you were wondering with my analogies, that’s what I’m thinking about. I’m not thinking about deaths or things like that.

There are different ways to deal with that, but I find these lines of thinking are the ones that my clients mostly pick. It’s either the default or they get into the better one. And when they start to become more powerful, feel more powerful, have a better narrative and mindset around it, they are much more successful and they get much higher paying, more amazing opportunities.

And they use it as like a, I’m a rise from this mountain of dust. I’m coming up and it’s like, you imagine somebody rising up and being like, is that all you got? And they’re like, not scared, right? Versus the person who’s panicking is literally hiding under the pile of rubble and being like, oh my God, what’s going to happen? What’s going to happen? And then they might come out, they might do some action, but they’re just going to go back under the pile of rubble. And they’re not going to show up and use it as a situation that is going to grow them.

They use it as a situation where they just stay the same and try to find the first thing that they can so that they can survive and feel secure. Right? And that is an option and it doesn’t have to be the option that you choose. So my goal for this episode was to share with you that if you are in a situation where you didn’t have a backup plan or you didn’t have a big cushion or you didn’t do everything that you maybe see that you should have done now, or you feel like you could have done to put yourself in a better situation now, that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

It’s just how we are told to look at things. We’re like, that’s a bad thing because you didn’t have this or that set up. It’s like, it’s neither good or bad. I’m going to use this because why not? Now that it’s happened, like you might as well use it. It’s like, and again, it does us no good to shame ourselves or even feel the feeling of regret. Regret is not a useful emotion.

The only use you could get out of regret is to say to yourself, okay, I’m never letting this happen again. These are the things I’m doing instead. Maybe that was the lesson you needed to learn from deciding you’re never going to let that happen again.

But if you don’t take that lesson, just feeling in regret is useless or feeling in shame, not useful, right? Not to say they’re not valid. Of course, your emotions are all valid, but the art of it is picking out the ones that are actually useful and the ones that are not. So the ones that are most useful are going to be the ones that drive you forward and going for more.

So actually using it as an opportunity to grow you, to expand you, to create something you didn’t have before. And a saying that I love is necessity breeds creativity, right? This goes to show like some people will quit a job with nothing lined up because they’re like, you know what? That’s just going to put me in a situation where I’m going to figure this out because I know I will. I’ll have no choice and then I’ll do it, right? Heard Tony Robbins talking about that like that one time.

And he would say things like burn the boats so you have no choice to get to the island, right? And again, some people really don’t like that and those people, they just won’t do that, right? They’ll have their setup thing or they’ll make sure that they’ve got their next secure thing to go to, but it doesn’t always work like that. We all find ourselves in situations sometimes where we don’t have a nice comfy boat to make our way there and we’ve got to make it happen no matter what. We just have to, we have to figure it out.

So in these situations, if you ever do find yourself in one or you have, it’s okay. It can actually be a really, really great thing. All right. Well, I hope you felt my energy through this episode because this is a topic that is really near and dear to my heart because I would shame myself before when I didn’t know this. I would shame myself for thinking, oh, I should have had this done. I didn’t do this.

And now I’m thinking all those situations were just meant to push me, to expand me, to make me more creative and they were meant to set me up for all the future situations in my life where I’m not going to have prepared and I am doing better to prepare. I am putting those things aside for myself. I am doing that now, but it’s not a requirement to become the person you want to become.

And maybe you do it right away. Maybe you have done it all your life. Maybe you haven’t. Maybe you find yourself in a situation where you just didn’t know you had to or that it was an option to prepare for it. And you have some lessons to learn. And I just want to let you know that it’s okay. It doesn’t mean that you’re not going to rise above stronger than ever before. All right. That’s what I have for you.

Sign up for the events coming up this week in the show notes. I look forward to meeting you, coaching you, sharing more information with you about the shortcut. The shortcut that I believe in super strongly. I’m excited to share it with you. That will be on Wednesday. The coaching calls are on Tuesday, the 28th of January and Thursday, the 30th, two different times. Once you sign up, you’ll see the links to the timings, but you can always watch the replays no matter what. So I will see you there and I’ll talk to you on the podcast next week. Okay. Bye-bye.

Hey there. Thanks for listening. If you’re new here, I’m Natalie Fisher. And if you want to take this work even deeper than the podcast, where I help you apply it, and I help you dig into your own personal situation, you have two ways to do that. The first is in my signature program, The Six Figure Curriculum, where we go through everything you need.

And I personally help you weekly to land that six figure premium role. If you want to take the work on the podcast deeper, the links for those are in the show notes below. To go right away, you can go to www.nataliefisher.ca forward slash start.