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Welcome to Life's a Game, a weekly newsletter to help ambitious people build a more meaningful and integrated life. Was this sent to you? Subscribe here so you don't miss the next one.​

The 5 Questions that Changed My Life

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Quick Spin:

• Note: Today's newsletter goes deeper than usual
• Signs you are out of alignment
• 5 questions to "click in"
• 2 exercises that led me to change my life

🐣 Good morning + Fun News!!!

My last 4 jobs were inbound...no resume....because people knew what my skillsets were and how I could add value. How? Because I tell them every day on Twitter & LinkedIn.

I'm doing a free webinar on October 19th with my friend (we met on Twitter) Jack Appleby - marketing director and author of the Future Social Newsletter - to discuss how to show up online to increase career opportunities and growth.

We will discuss:

• How to share your career wins on your LinkedIn
• Why vulnerability is the future of personal branding
• How to attract your next boss & client through content
• How to meet those important peers online

​Click here to sign up for the free Webinar.
​(you will get the replay if you sign up)

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♟️ MY TURN:

Now back to today's newsletter.......

If you are new here, 🧩 Life’s a Game is a newsletter to help high performers live a more intentional life. I want us all to get to the end of this crazy life and say “Yup - I played that exactly how I wanted to.”

Topics span productivity, personal branding, building a side hustle, tips from therapy and my self development journey and deeper looks at the science behind high performers.

We go deep every week.

But…..this week may be the deepest.

My hope is that you make space in your week to truly sit with the below questions.

Why?

A lot of my external growth (creating content, media appearances, selling my business etc) happened when I took my internal growth seriously.

My therapist calls it “clicking in” - that feeling when you start living a life that feels more in alignment with the person you are and want to be.

Signs you are out of alignment

• A general feeling that things are “off”
• Anxious and unsettled
• Loss of spark
• More friction (don’t mistaken something that is difficult for something that is full of friction - doing hard things should feel exciting and powerful not frustrating and agitating)
• Increased numbing activities

The below questions and exercises are ones I have used and continue to use as a lighthouse for my journey.

Ready?

• Set aside 10-20 minutes
• Grab some paper
• Find a quiet spot and some sunshine

And let’s dive in……

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♟️ YOUR TURN:

5 questions to “click in”​
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Question 1: What survival skill from my past is now holding me back? ​
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Many skills were forced upon us to survive difficult seasons. Some of those even became superpowers for a while. It’s important to check in with yourself to understand if something that helped during one season of your life is no longer serving you or holding you back in the next.

After my divorce I became fiercely independent. I didn’t want to depend on anyone for my emotional or financial safety. 6 years later I had to let that go in order to open myself up for a true partnership and intimate relationship.

Take a moment to think about what survival skills you collected throughout your tougher chapters and how they may be holding you back from thriving in your current one.
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Question 2: What’s my perfect day?

Story Time: It was February 2022 and I found myself on the beach in Tulum surrounded by female founders of brand names you most definitely have heard of, investors and authors.

Let me preface this all by saying I’m from the Midwest and meditation, manifestation was all woo-woo. I was more of a “if I want it I will make it happen by sheer force” kind of gal. But I was in a weird place in my life. I felt stuck. Being a founder and CEO and trying to raise a third round of capital in the height of the war in Ukraine was depleting everything inside of me.

They broke us into groups of 4 and asked us to close our eyes for 10 minutes and imagine a perfect day. If money was not an issue - what would the details of your most perfect day be?

We were instructed to visualize…..

• what the bedroom looks like when we wake up?
• what the weather is outside?
• what smells do you smell?
• what do you eat?
• who do you see?
• where do you go?
• what do you do?

Picture the entire day from the second you open your eyes in the morning of your perfect day to the moment your head hits the pillow. The more details the better.

Once you’ve taken the 10 minutes to write this down - proceed to question 3.

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Question 3: Does the path I’m on get me closer to my perfect day?

Sharing my “most perfect day” from the January 2022 exercise…..

I opened my eyes in a home that felt like a treehouse. Palm trees swaying outside. It was a modern but open house with warm accents. Perhaps because I was in Tulum when I did the exercise but I saw terracotta planters holding fiddle leaf plants with woven rattan light fixtures throughout my bedroom. I woke up and had a partner. I couldn’t see the partner (at the time of this trip I was single). But I had one on this perfect day. I could hear my kids already rummaging about and my chef was waiting for us with breakfast. (She said money was no object!) We all sat down in this nook surrounded by windows and talked as the kids got ready to head to school. They walked out the door and headed to school (apparently my dream life meant they walked a block to school?) and I got ready to go to coffee with a friend. After coffee I hit the gym and did an awesome workout and came back to do a sauna, ice bath circuit in my backyard. Around 11 I started calls and did some work at my desk before signing off at 3. I took a walk with a group of friends who came back and had smoothies from my chef. Then hair & makeup came and me and my daughters got glammed up while the house was being set up for a party. All of our friends were coming over for a casual backyard hang. Cafe lights lit up our large backyard and the smell of brisket and steak was taking over the home. We laughed and ate all night. I fell asleep surrounded by a partner and my kiddos and my heart was full.

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​I opened my eyes. I was back in Tulum on the beach. It was now time for the second part of the exercise - to share our perfect day with the other women in our group. I went first and recounted the flow and softness of the day. The quality time with my friends, partner and children. The ability to workout, do some work and be in control of my time. Something I didn’t currently have as the CEO of a fast growing startup.

Then the woman next to me went. She was a founder and CEO of a beauty startup and it was a rocketship. They had already secured Sephora and Ulta deals and her 200k following on Instagram adored her and loved cheering her on every step of the way. She was a mom of 2 and had a place in the city as well as the suburbs for weekends and summer. It was a level I had not achieved and I watched her move through the retreat with this effortless grace and confidence.

I listened as she recounted her perfect day. She woke up and hair and makeup was there. She had an appearance at the Today Show followed by a magazine shoot. She was being featured on the cover of Forbes as the fastest growing beauty brand. Her day was about power and the empire that she was building.

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​I felt so much guilt.

Had I done the exercise wrong?

Can I try again?

I felt really silly at that moment - like I wasn’t “CEO enough”.

And then it hit me.

The current path I was on was really far from my perfect day.

6 months later I made the decision to sell the company and step away to figure out what was next. Something that got me closer to my perfect day.

And guess what?

18 months later I have a partner, a slower life, a new home with palm trees swaying outside.

TL;DR When you know what you want AND you create the space for it…. it’s easier to get it.

Back to you….

Now that you’ve identified your perfect day - it’s time to come back to the present.

• How does your current day compare to your perfect day?
• Does your current path get you closer to it? Or is it pulling you further away from it?
• What is your confidence interval that it will get you closer? On what timeline?

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Question 4: What fear are you willing to release in order to live with more courage to go after it?

I had to let go of so many limiting beliefs in order to make the decision to sell my company. I was willing to release the fear of being seen as a failure - not a hardcore founder - not part of the “cool” club.

What are you willing to release in order to live with more courage to seek alignment?
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Question 5: What does 5 year old you need?​
This last question was maybe the most powerful therapy session I’ve had to date.

I kept repeating certain patterns in my relationships. Most notably - keeping people in my life for far too long who didn’t treat me well or deserve my time and energy.

She asked me to close my eyes and picture 5 year old Amanda.

Where is she?

What is she doing?

5 year old Amanda was outside playing at my parent’s house in the middle of the bright green Illinois farmland. She was by herself because she spent a lot of time alone given the closest neighbor was miles away and her brother was 7 years older and not wanting to play with her and her mom was always busy tending to the house or fielding calls for my dad’s plumbing business.

With my eyes still closed, my therapist asked me to walk up to her as the adult version of myself now. Say hi to her. Ask her what she is doing.

Then my therapist told me to ask her “what do you need right now?”

I remember seeing my little 5 year old face look up at me and say “I just want someone to play with me.”

I opened my eyes and was crying.

I now realized......that’s the reason I refused to end relationships even though they were not healthy. 5 year old Amanda was so lonely and just wanted someone around to play with her. She was terrified of being all alone.

It all made so much sense now.

Back to you…..

Close your eyes and picture the child version of you. Maybe you’re not 5 years old. Maybe you are 4 or 8 or even 12. What do they need?

Chances are that need is still showing up today and keeping you in some unhealthy adult patterns.

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To recap: 5 Questions to help you "Click In" to your life

Question 1: What survival skill from my past is now holding me back?

Question 2: What’s my perfect day?

Question 3: Does the path I’m on get me closer to my perfect day?

Question 4: What fear are you willing to release in order to live with more courage?

Question 5: What does 5 year old you need?

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This was a heavy one and I’m proud of you for pushing through. External growth can only happen if we do the internal work as well so we can be “clicked in” to the person and life we actually want to be living.

So thankful for you.

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