Transcript:

Ben Smith:

Hello, everybody. You've reached the Retirement Success Main podcast. Thanks for joining us today. My name is Ben Smith. Allow me to introduce my co-host the Portland Pie Company to my Pat's Pizza, Curtis Worcester.

Curtis Worcester:

Okay. I like it. I like it. Pizza. You're making me hungry already, but that's-

Ben Smith:

It's a Tuesday, so it's not Taco Tuesday, but we're going to go pizza Tuesday today.

Curtis Worcester:

Pizza Tuesday. What's wrong with that?

Ben Smith:

And you got kind of the Portland locale, which is spreading throughout the state, right? Portland Pie. But Pat's kind of a nice little franchise that's spread through the state too. And I know if you ask everybody, there's a slight differences in Pat's Pizza when you go from place to place to place. Everybody has their little kind of slants on stuff. Pizza's we're a fan of your, at Guidance Point in the Retirement Success in Main podcast. So enough about pizza.

We want to talk a little bit about obviously our show and we want to talk about retirement and aging and things that hold us back. And we all of course have stories about ourselves as we age. There's stories that we tell or maybe that tell us that we're too old for something or maybe it's too late for something. And of course, Curtis, you and I and our team, and Austin and Abby and Larry and Wes and Chris, we hear this all the time, right? We talk about our savings and what lifestyle we like to maintain as we age. But one thing we heard from our previous guests, Michelle Dickinson in our previous episode was her idea of a happiness scale. We've started to use this a little bit more in our conversations with our clients.

So she talked to us about a scale of zero to 100, where a hundred is the happiest you've ever been. And then going, all right, well how happy are you right now? And then once we get that answer, well, what are the things that you would like to do that would make you happier to get to 100? And I know one of the things that when we asked these questions to our clients recently, and do you know what a few of them said? They said that same story. "I'm too old to do that thing. I always want it. It's too late. Or perhaps maybe it's not possible to be that happy again." So these are the thoughts that we tell ourselves and then we make them a reality just by thinking them. So we really want to get into these limiting thoughts and how do we overcome them to make our dreams and visions of our lives are reality. So that's the purpose of today's show.

Curtis Worcester:

That's right, Ben. And we like to obviously bring in kind of topic experts here. I think you and I do a good job at being happy, but we're nowhere near experts in terms of telling other people-

Ben Smith:

Pat ourselves on the back on that one. Yeah.

Curtis Worcester:

Yeah, exactly. So today's guest is an energetic leadership coach, cultivating confident leaders who are able to engage, communicate, and lead teams with success. She helps businesses and leaders create cultures where employees are loyal, engaged, and are where they want to work. So knowing that many leaders are promoted based on how well they performed their current job and often don't have the resources or time invested in them to build their leadership skills confidently, she has dedicated years to becoming that resource. So she's able to allow business owners and executives to focus on the day-to-day operations while she supports their leadership teams by providing the one-to-one support, education, and strategic leadership courses. So our guest has had a successful corporate career at places such as Bank of America and Northern Light Health, and now on her own has her own coaching business, excuse me.

She has a degree in psychology certifications in meditation teaching, breath work facilitation, reiki master, mindfulness and more as she is always learning and growing. So with that introduction, please join me in welcoming Danielle Abbott to the Retirement Success in Maine Podcast. Danielle, thank you so much for coming on our show today.

Danielle Abbott:

Thank you for having me. I'm so excited when Ben reached out and to meet you, Curtis. I'm really excited to be here.

Ben Smith:

Oh, Danielle, so we want to obviously hear obviously a lot about limiting beliefs and aging and that as our conversation of today. But we always want to hear a little bit about you, is your path and getting you in terms of that expertise. So love to have you just give us a little bit about your background and what drew you to a career in coaching.

Danielle Abbott:

Yeah, sure. So I was a very young leader and I think that originally it started there. So I had my first leadership job when I was only 19 years old. I was going to college full-time. I was leading a team of 20 to 25 people who were my parents and grandparents age. So there was kind of a generational thing there. I was really blessed that I worked for a company who invested in their leaders. And I think that's why today I'm so passionate about that because I know many companies can't. Many companies do not have the capacity to have their own training department. And so I was invested in, and many people are like, "Oh, well you have a psychology degree, why didn't you go?" I'm like, "Well, want to use that degree every day in what I do." But I really loved the leadership and so that was in the banking industry and I stayed there for over 12 years before I moved over to healthcare.

And I was able to found a non-clinical training department for that healthcare system because there wasn't anything. If you weren't clinical, you didn't get developed, you didn't get the opportunity. So we were able to do that, create a mentor program, create a leadership course. And through the pandemic, I think like everybody, we've reassessed what we were doing. I love the happiness scale and we kind of reassess how happy am I, where do I want to be? And I've always wanted to have my own business. I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs, so this was just naturally my next step.

Ben Smith:

Awesome. Danielle. So that's really great because just obviously from, you kind of watched the corporate ladder and the way that kind of people advance in their career is it's like, well, you're really successful in this role that you're doing right now for us. What I'd like to do is then now elevate you to be the manager of other people. But just because you're successful at doing a task for an organization does not mean that you're the greatest manager of people or that you're the greatest motivator of people. And I don't know, it feels like a gap that I think a lot of organizations have is this whole, "Well, we're just going to promote you along this ladder just because we feel like that's a good thing to do." And there's really no kind of portability of training that sometimes goes between the two, right?

Danielle Abbott:

There's really not, or if you do have leadership training, it is things like how do you do payroll, or where do you go if you have a question, or how do you discipline somebody? All the policy stuff. And it's very little people stuff. And that's really what leadership is, right? It's being able to inspire and motivate and develop people so that they're successful. We just don't give a lot of time to that. And when you ask a question like, "Who was your best leader? Who is your best coach?" And people start telling me, and I'm like, well, why? And they're like, "Oh, because they motivated me and they inspired," and it's all these things nobody's taught to do in the leadership world, and it doesn't come naturally for a lot of people.

Ben Smith:

So are you saying that because somebody didn't issue my payroll on time every two weeks to not make them a good leader? Is that what I hear you saying?

Danielle Abbott:

Well.

Curtis Worcester:

Maybe, a little bit.

Danielle Abbott:

We're not calling anybody out, okay?

Curtis Worcester:

Yes. Okay. Danielle, I want to kind of zoom out a little bit from your career and just talk about, obviously we're a podcast that takes place here in the state of Maine. Why have you chosen the state of Maine as the place that you'd like to be?

Danielle Abbott:

Yeah, so I grew up in the state of Maine. I have not traveled far. I've traveled for lots of vacations, but I really just love Maine. I'm close enough for my family so I can travel and I can see my family whenever I choose to and whenever I want to. But I really have a passion for the hard worker, small business that really Maine has. And I want to be able to offer the training and the support so that all businesses can be successful. And I think I have really found that, not even just in, I'm in the Bangor area, but across the state and I'm able to travel and help so many people. And I love Maine. I love the four Seasons. I love all the forest, the woods and the ocean. We really get it all here.

Curtis Worcester:

We do. Well, you don't have to sell Ben and I on it. We haven't gone far either.

Ben Smith:

Well, and I think one of the things that I just love about Maine as well is the people, right? Is the fact that Danielle, we can just reach out to each other and say, "Hey, I think you would be an awesome person to bring on our show and talking about an issue that our population faces on a daily basis." And we're just all easy and willing to collaborate. And I think that's just a community-based spirit I think we all have here in this state that I don't think we can celebrate enough. I think that's such a great thing. So I would love to just hear a little bit about your business today though, in terms of the coaching business and what are you helping people with now and what sort of problems do you help your clients through traditionally?

Danielle Abbott:

Yeah. So I work with businesses like Ben had said, or I think Curtis had said, helping them really support their leadership staff so that they can do the day to day and they can worry about the bigger things. And so lots of times when I work with leaders, it is things like coaching or communicating and how do we communicate. Another big one is change leadership. There's so much change in business right now, no matter what industry you're in. How do I as a leader motivate my team through that change and handle the resistors and all of that fun stuff. And so it's really fun to be able to go and get to know different industries and work with different people in different ways.

But I also have a passion for helping the individual professional who thinks that the only thing to do with life is work, and they get burned out really, really quickly. And I think you know exactly what I'm talking about. I've been there. I have a feeling each of you have probably been there too. But we as busy professionals, whether it's the corporate world or you have your own business, we sometimes forget there's other areas of life and that can lead to burnout really quickly. And so I do have a population of professionals that I work with to set goals and achieve goals in multiple areas of life. And we do a lot of mindfulness and we do a lot of that work as well so that we can move that number up the happiness skill, right?

Curtis Worcester:

No, I love that. Thank you for sharing that. So I know the goal today is to really discuss how can we or our listeners overcome our limiting beliefs to live a more fulfilling life, right? So I want to dive in. I have a couple questions, so I'll start with the first one. We like to just define things before we just jump into something. So can you just help us define a limiting belief, I guess? How would you define what a limiting belief is?

Danielle Abbott:

So a limiting belief, it's kind of what it sounds like, right? But it's something that we believe about ourselves. So we believe about ourself, our abilities, the value that we have. And we really believe it. We believe that it's true and it restricts us from doing something. So it restricts us from retiring when we want to, from saving the money, from doing whatever it is, right? So we believe it's true and it's restricting us in some way. However, most limiting beliefs are not housed in fact, and they're based on our past experiences and interactions. So even though we believe it, doesn't mean it's true.

Curtis Worcester:

Yeah. No, that's great. Thanks for laying that foundation there. So with that definition now, what are some common limiting beliefs that you typically help people identify?

Danielle Abbott:

Oh, there's so many, lots of limiting beliefs. I can't do that, right? So I like to use phrases. So yeah, I can't do what, right? That's the biggest limiting belief. I can't have my own business. I can't get a promotion, I can't take the vacation. I can't. And so any I can't statement you're having is a lie. You can. We all make choices in order to get where we need to be. So lots of times that statement will come up. We have other statements like I can't put myself out on social media. I'm not pretty enough. I'm not young enough, I'm not, right? Those types of things really come up a lot too in that professional world. And I think that's why people focus so much on work because the other areas of life we talk about are relationships, self and growth. And those things get scary because our limiting beliefs really come up in those areas a lot.

Ben Smith:

Yeah. And I think that's something Danielle, where with our conversation with our clients is here they go where they focus so much on that work part of their life. And it seems like even maybe starting in their fifties, it kind of feels like, is that time is like, "You know, I've really kind of ignored retirement money, what's fun. What are these fulfilling things that I'm thinking about obviously that maybe end of life. And what if I'm looking backwards, what are the things that give me fulfillment and bring me purpose." And I think there's a little bit of searching going on there. And I know you talked a little bit about change in terms of organizations, but you go, what a transition and change for people there too.

So I know from the limiting belief there is some of this of, "Hey, I don't want to take away from here if I do this." So there's a little bit of those back and forth in the trade off conversations there. But I want to ask a question about reaching for the better version of ourselves. Why are we so scared of saying, this whole, I can't, right? Why am I scared of achieving a better version here? Do we feel like we're just not worthy of being a better version, or we can't be that happier place, or we can't get higher in the happiness scale? Why do we just have that as that limiting belief?

Danielle Abbott:

Yeah, I think what you said, Ben, is a piece of it, but I want to share something that actually, I just got this message four days ago from the group of women that I work with, the professionals who are figuring out that there's more to work. And she said to me, I keep procrastinating on some of the changes that I want to make in my personal life and professional life. And I just discovered that my obstacles, or as I call them limiting beliefs, is that she's actually worried about making the change because her life as she knows it, she doesn't know if it will be able to change with her. Change is scary. And through change and through my own change, I've lost people along the way. Those are the biggest things.

But I've lost things, I've lost people. And that's really scary, especially when you have a community that you love and you're like, "Oh no, if I change or if I become a snowbird," that's what my parents, my dad goes to Florida. And if I become a snowbird now, will I lose some friends because I won't see them six months out of the year?That can be scary for people because now you have to go make a whole new community. And so I just thought that was a really kind of aha moment. And it really said it perfectly that we're afraid of becoming what we want or we desire or we dream of because of what we may have to leave behind.

Curtis Worcester:

No, that's a really great answer.

Danielle Abbott:

Change is scary guys.

Curtis Worcester:

It is.

Ben Smith:

It is.

Curtis Worcester:

It is. So I want to keep going here and conversations that we have with our clients, and for this question specifically clients that maybe older women who talk about their young life, and now I put that in quotes for people on video, their young life is over. They can no longer wear those clothes. They can't do that with their hair. They can't paint their nails that color. Can you just talk about what it is about women especially that hold limiting beliefs like this?

Danielle Abbott:

So whether it's a limiting belief or a comparison, we talk about it a lot. And I don't think it's just women. I think women verbalize it more than men do. But I also have seen a lot of men have that comparison. And I'm comparing my life to somebody else's. We do it at all stages of life. I think when we get older, it might be more of a looks thing because physically our looks are changing. And so it might be a little louder. But we do it when we're going to college and you picked a college and your friend picked one. And now you're comparing like, "Oh my God, did I pick the right one? Or did I go to the college just because my family went to college?" We do that comparison then. Did I get married and have kids when everybody else did or when my family thought I should? Or if you're choosing not to have kids, you get that question a thousand times. And so we do that comparison through all pieces of life.

I think the growing old gracefully, it is just more visual than emotional or mental. And so we see it. And so what I would say about that is do the thing. Do the thing that makes you happy. And stop looking at social media and stop looking at what your neighbor's doing. And if you're comfortable wearing the thing or dye your hair or whatever, I'm not going to say how old I am, but I'm not super young, and I dyed my hair purple a couple of months ago. My hair's too dark, so you did not know. But I wanted to do, I'm like, "Hell, I'm going to do it." Can I say hell on here? I just did.

Curtis Worcester:

Oh yeah.

Danielle Abbott:

I'm like, "I'm going to just do it and see what it's like." Right? It's hair, dye it back. It's not a big deal. But we tend to worry so much about what someone else is going to think of us. So I guess advice I would say too is if I want to be super truthful and I am a super truthful person, yeah, your past life is over. It is. Things are different. And so we have to just move past that. All of our past lives are over. But you get to choose today, tomorrow, next week, what you do. And the key is to make those choices on how they make you feel. And how connected to your goals they are and nobody else's goals.

Ben Smith:

Well, I think that's a key point, Danielle, because from a comparison side, I think Curtis and me and Austin just had a meeting I think last week, and we're kind of working through this and hearing somebody say, "Hey, well I have X number of dollars and I'm looking at what I can afford and I'm doing this. And I always dreamed of having that boat, as I always wanted to have that boat. Well, geez, my neighbor on my camp, they just went and they got two boats. And I know he didn't have a job like me. And I know he probably didn't save as much as I did." And boy, but all of a sudden the comparisons are being thrown. They're just tossing right out there like they're tomahawks, right? They're just like, "Hey, I don't see why I can't have these things when I've maybe achieved these things."

And it's kind of going back to all the other stuff about anybody else's noise, right? You don't know their financial decisions. You don't know if they went into credit card debt to do that. You don't know if they have zero in their bank account. You don't know if they inherited money. You don't know any of their situation. So it's impossible to compare them to you and to go through it and to go... But we got to focus on you. Our job is you and sustainability of you for your life. And it's just tough to not get wrapped up in it because I think we all have this kind of status thing that we want to have a little bit. And you feel like, "Hey, I'm overdue and with the market was bad the way it was in 2022 and I have to cut back, and that's not comfortable." So again, I think what you're saying was right about the comparison piece, because it's just very easy to flow out.

But I want to ask a question, Danielle, about, we talk about caregiving a lot and we talk about, especially a lot of our clients, they're kind of in the sandwich generation where they have aging parents that they're in their eighties and nineties, they have an active role trying to take care of them. And I'd say the sandwich generation because they also have kids or maybe grandkids that they're having to help out with as well. But let's focus on the caregiving about say my parents, right? And we're going to help take care of my parents, or we're about to take care of my parents. And obviously we have not only our own limiting beliefs, but what if you are 85? And it was just thinking about these limiting beliefs of, "Hey, thinking about my mother-in-law, having to do this with her mother."

Her mother would say, so my wife's grandmother would say, "Hey, if I leave my home and I move to a senior living place, I am going to be miserable. I just might as well die at that point because it's going to be terrible. I like being in my home." She had fallen several times, it wasn't safe to be there anymore. So this was the belief she had that that was going to be a terrible experience and that's not where she wanted to live her life. And then two was, "Well, if I leave my home, it'll be a death sentence and everyone's going to forget about me because they won't know where I'm at." And so all of these things of, hey, I'm trying to give care, trying to allow my mother and father to age gracefully as long as possible and being as independent as they can be. How would you counsel someone that's caregiving for a parent to talk through those issues and challenge those beliefs?

Danielle Abbott:

Yeah, I think this is such a difficult question because it's not really black and white. Everybody's situation will be different. Sometimes maybe it's a mental capacity or maybe it is a safety issue and more mobility. And so there will be different things that you will need to work through. But the other thing that makes it so challenging is lots of emotions are involved. And so the first thing is we have to understand if somebody has a limiting belief that, "Oh, it's a death sentence or I'm not going to be happy," that is their truth. And so by us saying, "Oh, that's not true," doesn't make it any better, right? So stop telling them that. Nobody likes to hear care of that because that is their truth. Whether we know it differently, that is it, right? And so I would say, first of all, don't downplay the way that they're feeling. Like that's super scary. This is a huge life transition. It's a change.

And so I would actually walk through it any change that I would walk through and have a discussion around four key pieces. So grab a pen and a paper anyone listening. So the things that you want to talk about is what are the things that you used to be able to do at home that you will still be able to do? Here's everything that stays the same. What are the things that you couldn't do at home that you still won't be able to do? All of those things stay the same. So maybe in your case Ben of your grandmother-in-law, right? I think I followed that.

Ben Smith:

Yes. Sorry.

Danielle Abbott:

Then what are things that she still was going to be able to do? Could she still have friends over if she was social? Yes, I can. Could she still watch any channel she wanted on TV because she would have her own TV? Yes, she could. What could she do before that she can't do now? Well, she can't scream at the neighbors or she can't, whatever it might be. So those are the things that will stay the same. So starting there will provide a little bit of comfort. Okay, some of the things I know are not changing. And then the next one is, what are the things that I could do before but I can't do now? So here are the things that she will be sacrificing. So what could she do before that she can't do now? So something in the older generation, I could drive to the store myself and now I can't. And so there could be some of that. So these are going to be the things that you're sacrificing in order to get the next question, which I think is the most exciting.

What are the things I couldn't do before that I can do now? I can meet new friends, I can hang out, I can play the games in the break room. I don't have to clean my own house, whatever it is that lights her up. Those are the exciting things. And once you figure out that piece, that's what you really would focus on because it's super exciting. So we recognize that some things aren't changing. Here's some things you are going to have to sacrifice and why. But then here's all these cool new things that you're going to be able to experience. And I think when we can talk through our loved ones, and that wouldn't be a one conversation, that would be like over time, right? When we can talk through some of that, it can make it a little less scary.

Curtis Worcester:

Love it. Yeah, that's a great answer. I was writing them down as you went too. So I know we told the listeners to write them down, but I was doing that as well. So I want to keep going here with limiting beliefs. I know that previous conversation was about caregiving and maybe dealing with somebody else or helping somebody else deal with their own limiting beliefs. I want to talk about our limiting beliefs again. So what do we do when say I finally have the courage to reach for that better version of myself or of my life and maybe a loved one isn't being supportive of me. So I think the scenario that Ben and I have seen a couple times is say as we age, say we lose a spouse or someone loses their spouse and they decide to go back out there and start dating again just to find that companionship. But maybe our kids, and in this scenario they're probably adult kids aren't supportive. In this scenario, how do we have this conversation with our kids about pursuing what's meaningful to us, which would be this new relationship, then it will make our life better even if they may not approve of it?

Danielle Abbott:

So I think one thing starts with dealing with your own living belief, which might be something like, "Oh, my kids get to dictate what I do. Or my kids' happiness is more important than my own," is a big one. This is your one life. This is your life and you need to live it in the way that makes you the most happy. And I understand that we all have multiple relationships in our life and people are there for a reason and we love them and we don't want to break down those relationships. But I think the first step is figuring out, do you have a eliminating belief around this that your children's happiness is more valuable than yours? And that is where you would probably need to start.

But once we work through that, I really think the conversation is around empathy. And depending on the age of the children, in this example, we're going to use older children, right? Because I think that's probably appropriate. The conversation may be a little different. But for older children, I would really talk about that empathy. "If you were in my shoes, what would you want? Or what would you do if this happened to you?" But then the other thing is allowing them to have some input. And so I know I am super protective of my parents and I get that feeling, but saying something like, "I'm not going to say your opinion doesn't matter, but I'm going to date regardless. How can I make it easier for you?" And so you're not making a decision based on what they said, but you are giving them some input on what would make them comfortable. And maybe they say, "I don't want to meet the person for six months. I don't want to know about it." "Okay, great. It's still going to happen, but here's where you can have some say is how can I make it more comfortable for you?" Or maybe they want to meet the person right up and interview them, who knows, right?

Curtis Worcester:

Yeah, sure.

Danielle Abbott:

They can go either way I guess. But I really think it's a conversation around identifying if you have a limiting belief first, talking about empathy and what would they do. But then allowing them to decide, "It's going to happen. How can we make it comfortable for you?" And seeing if it's something that you can do.

Ben Smith:

Danielle, I think you're spot on right there. And I'll just kind of add another through line too, is I think there's sometimes a concern with adult children about the inheritance lines is like, "Hey, here's the house that we grew up in and you're still in mom or dad, and if you date, and then if that dating turns to marriage, and then if maybe you predeceased your new spouse, then how is this going to change in terms of what all of you or both of my parents accumulated together and we're going to give to your kind of natural children," right? I think there is a little bit of, as you talked about leaning into it is kind of talking about that a little bit. What would make it easier? Oh, well, because I could see from the adult children perspective of my concern is that there's some mightiness that comes out of a relationship about whose assets are whose.

And if one of you passes, then how does that flow in making sure it flows in a way that maybe is true to maybe basically our lost spouse, what they wanted, but also making sure it's kind of staying true to what's been communicated in our family values. So I know that that's some of the core issue, but I think you're right on about talking through it, right? It's like, "Hey, I want you to date, but I also am concerned about someone views you based on maybe a money component. And that money component gets used in a way that maybe I'm not comfortable with." So again, I just want to add that as well.

Danielle Abbott:

And I think too, if we ask that open-ended question, you might hear some of those, because nobody wants to have the conversation about their parents dying. No. That is not top of the list. And so they might be thinking about in the background, but I don't really want to say it, but if we just say, "Hey, how could we make this more comfortable? Well, can we have a conversation about what happens if this gets serious?" Right? They may be more likely to open up and ask those tough questions.

Ben Smith:

And then if those were all out in the open and we said, "Okay, then if that's your concern," and if we had an estate planner that lined things up to the way that is an agreement to everybody, then I think that you've cleared that obstacle and all of a sudden now, "Hey, I want to go out and I want to date and I want to find a new relationship." I now feel like I have the support and I'm not hiding something of my life that's bringing me happiness. And then I have to have shame to my children about, right? So I think that's a really important piece. But I want to ask in a different way, Danielle, I want to go again, limiting beliefs, things that are holding us back here a little bit. But what about in your expertise and the experience you've had with your clients, especially in your current coaching business, have you seen some limiting beliefs that are so strongly believed that in your role as a coach you've been unable to break through or change?

Danielle Abbott:

Yeah. Yeah, I'll say so far one, so that's pretty good, right?

Curtis Worcester:

That is.

Ben Smith:

That's pretty good.

Danielle Abbott:

Some take longer than others, some take longer than others. But there is one that I can really remember, and I'm going to call it a limiting belief and we might call it something different, but really the thought was, "I can keep myself closed off and I don't need to open up, yet I want to build relationships with somebody else, whether it's an intimate relationship or a friendship or whatever that looked like. But I don't have to share anything about me. It's none of anybody's business about myself. But they need to open up and be willing to accept me." And that was tough. And there was progress made. I'm not sure we got to where I would've liked to be. But this person really believed that so strongly. And it was because of past relationships and it was because of past upbringing, right?

Lots of our limiting beliefs, I'm sorry parents out there, but you're doing this to your children, lots of it, right? But it comes from a good place 99% of the time. And so there was really two pieces, and this limiting belief kept her from seeing the real issue. And the real issue was this person had a lower level of self-awareness and social awareness or relationship management, which is part of emotional intelligence. And so the cool thing about emotional intelligence is we can increase it and we can improve emotional intelligence, unlike IQ. There's thoughts that you're just kind of born with your IQ and it is what it is, right? And so she couldn't get there to see that it really was an internal thing. And so it was interesting, it was fun, it was a challenge.

Ben Smith:

So then I want to follow up to that then. So here's somebody that they're kind of closed off, they've built that wall, they've built the barrier to then having relationships, but again, kind of maybe have a worldview where everybody else needs to share with them. All right, so I have this very strong limiting belief or strong kind of barrier in my life. How can I still seek that self-improvement in my life when I have such a very strong kind of thing that's holding me back? Can I still work in other areas maybe longterm that might soften it, or how do I get that continued progress?

Danielle Abbott:

And that's exactly actually Ben, why I work with those four areas that I talked about. So career, which includes everything like wealth. You guys are in that career bucket, right? The wealth and having a side hustle or promotions or leadership or whatever. And then we have our relationships, our family, our friends, our whoever else is in that bucket. And then we have ourself, right? So our physical health, our emotional health, mental health, all of that stuff. And then we have the growth. And so the nice thing about limiting beliefs is many times they impact one, maybe two of those areas, but you can start working in other areas. And then once those are really solid, you're actually have this nice foundation to be able to crack open a little bit wider and get to really some of the hard stuff. People aren't always ready to do the hard emotional work and limiting belief work that it takes. And so sometimes we need to focus on something else and get some momentum and then bring it back to whatever that might be.

Curtis Worcester:

Nice.

Danielle Abbott:

There's hope for you yet, Ben.

Curtis Worcester:

So I want to take that scenario of that self-improvement while working with that strong limiting belief, but flip it around. So everyone listening to this podcast, I'm sure we have a treasure trove of life experiences here. I'm sure just the three of us talking here have very different life experiences. So how can people connect and help coach, I guess is the word, the younger generations or just other people about overcoming limiting beliefs? Now, I understand the caveat here as they're not professionally trained in this like you may be. But how can we turn this around and help other people overcome their limiting beliefs that may be held by today's generation, if I'm an older individual?

Danielle Abbott:

So first of all, we brought up generations. That's a whole nother podcast.

Curtis Worcester:

Yeah, okay. Book it.

Ben Smith:

On two, coming up.

Danielle Abbott:

People already are like... The first thing is we can't be an enforcer of the limiting belief. And so most older generations have caused limiting beliefs in the younger generation. And when I heard you say generations, all of a sudden I hear millennials, right? And what do we say about millennials? Oh, they're lazy, they have no work ethic. Well, guess what? They're not 20 anymore either. They're 40 now. And I think that's something we hear millennial and we still picture these 18, 19, 20 year olds, and they're not, they're 40. They're married and have children and have professions and all of these things. And so some of that, if I hear over and over and over as a millennial, I have no work ethic and I this, I that, guess what? I'm going to start behaving that way because I believe it. And I believe that no matter what my work ethic is, nobody's going to see it anyway. So why work that hard?

So we actually cause limiting beliefs in other people. And so I would say the first thing to do is understand what your views are and what you're saying to other people. And what we hear over and over and over again, we begin to believe. So what are you telling the younger generation? What are you telling your children or the younger people that work with you or the person that's going to take your position because you're about to retire? Are you telling them it's so hard and they'll never make it? Or are you telling them all the positive things? And so I think we have to think about it that way a little bit. And so don't be the person that causes the limiting belief, right? Just be that person that kind of understands that just because we don't work the same or we don't manage money the same, or we don't have the same boat, it doesn't mean one of us is less than the other. I think that's really important. I don't know if I answered your question.

Ben Smith:

Yeah.

Curtis Worcester:

No, you definitely did. Go ahead man.

Ben Smith:

No. So-

Danielle Abbott:

Generations.

Ben Smith:

Yeah. So Danielle, I think that's the thing about obviously each generation has their own kind of environment that we all grew up in, right? Is I think that's the hard part of going... And again, from our roles, what we're seeing right now, the quote I would use the most out of what came from today was the whole idea about going, we've kind of passed on limiting beliefs to the next generation. As advisors today we're dealing with that almost continually where this generation right now is this echo of the Great Depression, that generation that grew up and the Great Depression, and they literally saw their life savings go away. They literally saw themselves living on very little rationed food and having to go through a war effort at the concurrent years after that. Those were shaping worldviews and shaping belief systems about money, about not going back to a poverty line. And in that they've basically given this generation of, a lot of them are first generation blue collar wealth, right? They've been taught to save everything.

So the concept of spending is so foreign of a concept to them that any dollar that they spend from that wealth is a step towards their parents' experience of getting to having nothing and completely decimating their financial picture. So that is a big ball of yarn that just-

Danielle Abbott:

So big.

Ben Smith:

Right? Just to your point about, hey, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay. And so there's a lot of confidence building that needs to be done that we're working on with our clients to show and to say, why this, why not that? And I just know that's the group that we're having now. And again, going to the next generation of now are two echoes away from that Great Depression. So you don't have that as much. And they're more now, and I know we've had a previous podcast in this, they're more apt to have the balance of life attainment and work and career attainment and not have to pour into career to get the money to then not go into it. So there's a lot of, I think that, and I know you've, again, just kind of translating here a little bit. But in my reaction to you, Danielle, of everything that you've been giving us today, man, it just really is spot on to I think what we're seeing on a day-to-day basis.

Curtis Worcester:

Absolutely.

Danielle Abbott:

Can I ask you a question?

Ben Smith:

Please, yeah.

Curtis Worcester:

Yeah, let's go.

Danielle Abbott:

So when we're talking about the generations that have that connection to the Great Depression and how they save, we now have this new generation coming up where everybody's an entrepreneur and everyone can make a buck posting themselves on social media or Instagram or whatever that might be. So they may not have a corporate world with a retirement plan and all of these things. So are you seeing anybody yet from that generation? I'm assuming they handle money very differently.

Ben Smith:

Yeah. Because I think what what's happening a lot, and again, I know Curtis and Austin and our team, we see this is they kind of view monetizing hobbies. So let's monetize fun, right? Let's monetize other things that give us joy. "Yes, I have a core skill in my career, but there's other things I can always do, whether it's a gig economy thing, like a Fiverr, and I could do a little graphic design and I can go make 500 bucks. I could go knit something and I like knitting while I watch Netflix, and I can go make a hundred bucks. And if I do that 10 times, then there's a thousand bucks and I've just paid for my vacation, right? So I then found ways to create more happiness of something that I like to do for fun anyway, get paid for it to then afford the next thing." And it's not a, "I have to go, oh, it's I'm 58 and I'm in the last five years and I'm just slaving and punching the clock every day to get the money."

Danielle Abbott:

And so here's another limiting belief for the older generations is work can't be fun. And our younger generation has proven that wrong, right? So they could still have that fun. But we have that like, "Oh, work can't be fun. If I enjoy it, then it's not work," right? Because we always hear like, "Oh, if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life," right? So we have this mentality around work has to not be fun. And I just think that generation has proven that wrong.

Ben Smith:

And Danielle, I'll say this too, is, so I joke to my wife about this and I say, "Hey, when I retire, I think what would be so fun is at that point, I don't have any career pressure, right? So any dollar I make is just an additional dollar and I could learn." So I said, "Wouldn't it be fun just to go get to a barista job at Starbucks? Go learn how to make the entire library of coffees and get paid to do it. And if at one point you stink, who cares? They fire you. And I just go do something else. I don't care. I could go to McDonald's and I could learn to flip the McDonald burger." And it's like you could learn to do so many different things. And if you make $25,000 a year, man that's money that you're having fun. You're learning something new, you're kind of staying young. And if you stink, who cares?

Danielle Abbott:

Right? There's no pressure.

Ben Smith:

Yeah. So that was what I know it's a kind of a sick dream because who cares like, what you want to go work at Starbucks or McDonald's? What are you talking about?

Danielle Abbott:

That's awesome.

Ben Smith:

No, but-

Danielle Abbott:

But you're going to have to get out of the house.

Ben Smith:

Yes.

Danielle Abbott:

You're going to have to do something.

Curtis Worcester:

Yeah.

Ben Smith:

Yes. So-

Danielle Abbott:

I love it.

Ben Smith:

All of a sudden you bartend, I don't know, learn to do a skill and you can then show it off at parties and stuff. That would be fantastic.

Danielle Abbott:

Oh my God, I love your plan.

Curtis Worcester:

I love Ben's retirement experience here. We're going to wake up and he is going to make us anything at Starbucks. And then he is going to flip us some McDonald's burgers.

Danielle Abbott:

It's going to be great.

Curtis Worcester:

And then he's going to show us a fancy cocktail at night because he's learning all these skills. It's fantastic. Sign me up.

Ben Smith:

But Danielle, to your point is like, "Hey, here's a way you could go make some money." And it's like, I'm having fun, I'm making a little bit of money. No stress, no pressure. And you're just kind of going, "Hey, I'm able to then do more things with that money and have maybe a fun or richer retirement as I do it." And if you do anything for 40 or 50 years, you are going to have some burnout, you're going to have some fatigue. It's not saying that it's a bad profession or all that, but I think that's where I'm at with it is, hey, change right? Is do something different. Get some excitement. Which is, I think why Curtis and I started this show is this is a good way to change up what we do. It's kind of a fun thing here. So Danielle, I hopefully answered your question back.

Danielle Abbott:

Surprise. I come with questions.

Curtis Worcester:

Yes.

Ben Smith:

There you go.

Danielle Abbott:

My own questions.

Curtis Worcester:

Yeah, exactly. Danielle, I do have one kind of wrap up question for you. And this is great because it's going to go with what Ben just gave us as insight for him. So obviously the name of our show is The Retirement Success in Maine Podcast. So one thing we'd like to ask all of our guests is how will you find your personal retirement success? So, it's a big question-

Danielle Abbott:

Oh, this is a good one. We actually met with our financial advisor last week. And so this really came about when I left the corporate world for myself. And I was really much more like, "Okay, we got to do something," right? We've always been saving for retirement. I think we do pretty well at that. So we met with them and we were really talking about what do we want retirement to look like? And so we're working into a backwards, right? Rather than being like, "Oh, I got to do this, this, and this," but not ever know what we're trying to get there-

Curtis Worcester:

That's right. Absolutely.

Danielle Abbott:

And so my husband and I have some homework while we're on vacation in the next couple weeks and we're going to brainstorm and get super creative. I'm like, if we could have anything, what do we want our retirement to look like, feel like? What money do we want? Do we want investment? What do we want? And then we'll talk through, okay, what are the steps to get there? And so I use this success framework that I created because I think we are really great at setting goals, but we are really bad at achieving goals. And so I will be using this framework as, okay, here's our retirement goal. How are we going to actually get there? And it involves some of that emotional component. Because when you're emotionally attached to something, you are much more likely to actually get there and achieve it. And so I don't think you're ever too young or old to think about retirement. I feel blessed that I was taught that from my parents when I was younger because I don't see everybody has that same. So I love what you guys are doing. I love that you're getting the word out and sharing how important that is.

Ben Smith:

I love that too, Danielle, because especially as you kind of set those goals, then you're more likely to want to save towards them, right? Is if I know what I'm saving for, I'm more likely to be excited about sacrificing that dollar today to do that dollar plus later. So I think you're spot on with that thinking. I think that's fantastic. So Danielle, thank you so much for coming on our show today, talking about limiting beliefs, sharing your coaching experience with us. A lot of fun. I know we laughed a lot, but I think we covered a lot too in terms of the conversation about our population. Thank you so much for coming on.

Danielle Abbott:

Thank you so much for having me. This was a blast. I love that.

Ben Smith:

All right, take care. We'll see you. So limiting beliefs with Danielle Abbott. Episode 81. So again, I think there's a lot of things that we all hold, myself included here, about things that we tell ourselves that we can't do or won't do, or things that we think are blocking us that even of, we talked about kind of jokingly that we've all lived in Maine our lives. And it's like, well, our parents lived in Maine their whole lives. And so it's like, here's this limited belief of I guess I got to still be in the state of Maine and address cold long winters or things like that, right? I think there's things that as we're working through and hopefully you listening out there that you can all kind of think of something that maybe you had to overcome or you were able to overcome. It would maybe unlock things in your life.

And I think that was why we wanted to talk about this concept today was these barriers that we have, these things that we hold, that we believe to be true, that maybe if we challenge a little bit, it might allow maybe a new world of possibilities. So that was our thought about and why we reached out to Danielle, and I think she did a fantastic job today about all the things that we talked about, about limiting beliefs, exploring them from all the different angles, different generations, going through different transitions. Obviously she has a lot of career coaching that she does with people in addition to the personal coaching. But again, from my end, I thought it was really great to hear her framework around the four things there, around kind of working through here's what you can do, and what you can't do. And kind of going through all those four steps. So hopefully you out there have taken something away from our show today. And again, I'd love to hear Danielle at another time because I think she was fantastic guest.

Curtis Worcester:

Yeah. And I think we teed it up. She said she wanted to come back and talk about generations with us. So I don't know if we have enough time there. But no, I just kind of echo everything you just said, Ben. I think she did a great job for me. One, kind of laying out the framework of limiting beliefs and really just defining and where we see them. And to me it was seeing really how prevalent they are. Even like you said in ourselves, they're there. And then just her giving us that insight of how she works and helps people work through them I think was really cool.

But like we do with all of our shows, we like to kind of have a summary webpage, a little blog for the show. So as Ben said, this is episode 81. So where you can go is it's going to be blog.guidancepointllc.com/81 for episode 81. And on there we'll have obviously links to the audio kind of podcast format. We'll have a link to the video if you prefer to kind of take this in via video. And you can see our smiling faces as we have these conversations. We have a transcript there as well. I know some of you like to read through our conversations. And we'll have contact info for Danielle too and how you can get in touch with her and learn a little bit more about what she does. But again, we thought it was a really great conversation. We thank you all as always for tuning in and listening to our conversations. Hopefully you find some value in them. And we look forward to future conversations and hopefully you tune in for those as well. But until then, thank you so much and we'll talk to you next time.