Staying positive during challenging times with Lisa Corduff

Lisa’s Bio

Lisa Corduff helps extraordinary women get unstuck and create real and lasting change in their lives. She uses practical and powerful mindset strategies (and a stack of inspiration!) to help you identify and breakdown the barriers that hold you back – because the world needs more women owning their worth and power.

Transcript

If you are going through a difficult time and need to uplift your mindset, this podcast episode will blow your mind. Today I chat to Mindset Coach, Lisa Corduff, about how to manage your thoughts through challenging times, and she shares some strategies to help you control your mindset and stay upbeat and positive no matter what is going on around you. This episode is full of inspiration and hope, and I’m sure you will enjoy.

You’re listening to the Clare Wood podcast, where we talk all things business, finance, marketing, and mindset for entrepreneurs, sharing practical tips, and actionable advice to help you take your business to the next level. Introducing your host: me! I’m Clare Wood, I’m a numbers geek, a travel lover, and a reality tv addict, and I’m here to empower you to create an extraordinary business and an amazing life, because I believe you don’t have to choose between the two. Now let’s dive right in to today’s episode.

CLARE:

Welcome to the podcast Lisa! Can you please explain who you are and how you help people?

LISA:

I started an online food blog, then I created online courses and memberships to help mums feed their family more wholefood. Then last year I really started to get a sense, while I was having a lot of personal transformation myself, that women in these communities, some would jump right in and start making changes, some took a small steps approach, and some would hit the ground running and run out of steam as well as some who wouldn’t even open it. I became fascinated by why we stop the process of change. I created a program called “Ready for Change” which helps women who are feeling stuck, repeating negative patterns, those who are waking up to themselves and thinking why do I do this, or hit a ceiling and can’t go beyond. So we work out what’s going on and how to re-program those stories, and create a life and business that they really love. I run a 4 week program that is transformational. I also have a business mastermind, because I love supporting women in business and helping them grow theirs, and it’s called the “Breakthrough Mastermind” here in Australia.

CLARE:

Isn’t it crazy how life takes us on different paths. Sometimes being open to those things is the way to go right?

LISA:

I never could have predicted what my business would be, with three children (who are 4 and under), I had a 4 month old when I launched my Free 21 Day Wholefoods Challenge. I had no idea what I was doing. I had no VA, I sent everything out via MailChimp and Vimeo links, there was no website, and then I sold my 8 week program on the back of that and had 500 people join. I didn’t know anything about anything. Then to see last year as the first year of 7 figures in the business, and my kids have grown and I have grown, I went through a separation and my husband died all within 6 months of each other, and that was last year. Learning lots of mindset tools, has put me in good stead but also giving myself permission to take imperfect action in the business so it can keep going and not be attached to everything being perfect. Being in momentum is much more important.

CLARE:

The reason I wanted to bring you on was to talk about navigating difficult times which feels really fitting at the moment, at the time of recording.

Could you delve more into some of the challenges you’ve faced and the hard times you’ve been through?

Lisa’s challenges and hard times

LISA:I think right now, it’s challenging, but the uncertainty is the most challenging part. We have no idea what’s going on but we know the landscape has changed. We don’t know how it will play out, and we have people would are self-classified control freaks, and it’s very confronting to realise you have no control over our external world. Control is an absolute illusion. We do have some personal control but they have nothing to do with the outside world. I think that, for me, I thought I was holding things together, I thought I could control specific outcomes, my husband was challenged with mental health issues, and I lived in a constantly uncertain and unpredictable environment, and I realised very quickly that I could go down with the ship, if I kept on gripping on to trying to fix everything, because I am a classic co-dependant, and I don’t think many of us women who are partners and mothers understand that word, we take the responsibility to look after and care take those around us, when actually it’s not our job to do that. I started to let go and do my own inner work and think what do I need to feel ok right now? What am I responsible for? I figured out that we are all energy beings and the one thing I can control is my energy and vibration. I noticed as I dipped so would my business too, but I was processing things that were big and really disruptive in my life, but I still had to be ok as the sole income earner. I had a really big wake-up call, and I think everyone is in this place right now, with Coronavirus, it’s not going to go away, it’s set for months if not the year and it’s disruptive and uncertain and yet we can still be ok. I can think about what I need today, to make me feel good. I can choose to raise my vibration by playing Roxette on Spotify. We have choice in these moments. When Nick got sick, we were living in Brisbane and had been for 5 years, but all our family was in Melbourne. I decided that we would move back to Melbourne, I just launched a new program called “Small Steps Back To You”. I did the webinar the day after he’d been in hospital for the first time, I then ran that launch with him in hospital, deciding to leave Brisbane, packing up my 3 children, who were in family daycare, kindergarten and Grade 1 and I also did a trip to the US for my mastermind, all within 3 weeks before finding myself back in Melbourne. I did it all, and I was like this is who I am and responsible for. We stayed parents place for 5 weeks, find and setup a house by myself really and find new schools and daycares etc, and all the logistics of moving house and running my business and caretaking everyone. Not asking for help when I should have. Then I got shingles. I couldn’t get out of bed for 2 weeks. My coach at the time said, you are not being very responsible for yourself. And I was like “F YOU”! I couldn’t hear it. But what he was saying was, no one is coming to save you and keep you well, no one is going to offer you help… it’s on you. That was the biggest most uncomfortable slap in the face I’ve every received. I realised that as a mother, wife and business person I was stuck in victimhood, even though from the outside I was doing well, I was a classic high-functioner. My ego loved me being in that, it made me feel important. I realised that identify had to shift and had to work from a place of personal power and personal responsibility, if I really wanted my life and my health to thrive.

I started a process of checking in with myself:

• If I’m really being responsible, what do I need to do here?
• What do I need to say yes to, and what do I need to say no to?
• What difficult conversations do I need to have?
• How much do I need to rest?

This perpetual launch cycle I’d found myself in had to stop. My body was in full blown adrenaline all the time and that is not healthy or sustainable. And it wasn’t what I wanted to be doing in a year, so I had to ask myself, how do I pivot and show up for myself? That really changed the game for me, I could see how other people’s energy affected me a lot, I wasn’t being responsible for that, I wasn’t being responsible for the late nights that I was putting in and then waking up early. I needed someone else on the team so I didn’t have to do it all. It was a moment to reflect and see what I could change. I looked at where that victimhood was playing out as well in my life, not just my business.

CLARE:That has been one of the biggest things, as a business owner, in a prior life when things weren’t going well it was because I had a crappy boss, or someone at work wasn’t nice, or whatever, but as a business owner, anything that goes on, you are accountable for. Oh but the economic climate.. but everyone is in the same economic climate too! You own your success and your happiness. Success is nothing if you end up with shingles. That is your body saying “Lisa, you’ve had enough.” I’ve heard that a lot, reaching that burnout point.

LISA:

And I thought I was taking care of myself! I know what to eat, I know about stress, and yet I found myself in that position. It’s like the world, humanity has found itself in that position right now. We have a moment to pause, reflect and stop. We are a bit out of balance here, but those that take the time, and take responsibility, and think about what we actually need for health and happiness, rather than those who are already like “prop up the system!!” and who will catastrophise and have so much attachment to what has been because our brains love predictability and to know what’s coming next. When you surrender fully to the fact that you have no control, then it offers you the freedom to be here right now. We have no idea how this will roll out, and we have a lot of fear and anxiety about how it will play out, and that is fair enough, but anytime I’ve gone into fear in my business or my life, it’s been returned to me. Fear is a low vibration to be in, so I always keep thinking how can I be at peace, what do I need to do to feel at peace? Usually, that comes down to the fact I can control the food my children and I are eating, I can control the thoughts I’m choosing to think – people don’t realise they have a choice for their thoughts, they are the thinkers of their thoughts. Raise your consciousness of those thoughts, because you are bigger than those thoughts. Look at them and ask, are they taking me closer to peace or not.

There is a lot of denial happening right now. But really, there are going to be hard times. We are going to have grief around what was. Human beings need to allow themselves to move through those emotions, don’t squash them down, that’s no healthy, but when you have the moment, you can choose to stay stuck in that emotion, or you can switch your attention to other things.

CLARE:

A psychologist friend of mine always asks, “Is that a helpful thought?”. So when I find myself spiralling, I think about that. I like what you said though, rather than NOT think about it, acknowledge it’s there, there’s grief and fear and I’m going to feel it for a bit, but I’m not going to spiral with it.

At the moment, if you think everything is going to be disastrous you will keep finding pieces of evidence that support that. You go on websites, and Facebook groups to feed that thought, but if you go, ok I’m choosing to move away from that, then that is where the transformation happens.

Dealing with fear and hysteria

LISA:

Exactly, I love the way Liz Gilbert talks about fear in Big Magic. Fear is always there, you are driving along and fear is tapping your shoulder saying don’t go there, turn around, and you can be like, I see and hear you fear, and you are scared and it’s new and weird, and we haven’t been down this road before, but you’re going to have to get in the back seat because I hear you, but you aren’t driving the car, I am. I get it’s scary, but I just need to do this thing, and you’ll need to sit in the back. We can’t live a fear-free life, our brains are wired to our environment to gauge the danger. Right now, walking down the street feels dangerous if we allow that to be the case. Thank you fear for showing me it’s a new situation and new game, and it feels strange, but today, this is what I can do, this is how I’m going to drive the car today.

With a pandemic, it’s the fear and hysteria that is going to cause the repercussions much further down the track, so internally we need to have those “is this a helpful” moments, because we are choosing to think these thoughts, but is that what we should be doing right now? Have we been here long enough, we have sat up all night ruminating on it, so ok, today, what are we going to do? What am I’m going to think today, to help make today a better day, even though s**t is flying around us.

For me personally, there were all these things happening, and life didn’t feel ok, and it hasn’t been rainbows and unicorns, but yet I’m ok, I surrender to whatever it is, so I don’t hold attachment to things turning our a particular way. Anytime we create attachment to an outcome we are bound to suffering because we don’t have an ability to control our outcomes! We can just vibe at a particular energy and choose our vibration and think about thoughts that support that vibration and then surrender.

Right now as entrepreneurs, I was the government, and think if us female entrepreneurs were in there getting s**t done, and bringing creativity and hope, those that heal themselves at a deep level, imagine if those were the ones that in there having those higher level conversations at a government policy level, how different that would look. We are the people we’ve been waiting for in this circumstance, we can choose to jump head first into the collective hysteria, or choose to see it from just outside that and think creatively about all the ways we can serve right now. How can we help and bring light and humour to the conversation. This is a time of huge opportunity if we choose to see it like that.

CLARE:

I 100% agree!

I have not been showing up in that way, when it first started I disappeared and went into the spiral of reading every news article and I went down the rabbit warren, but guess what, I stopped showing up for my community and my family, and then I thought they are probably getting some of this negative energy from me. Now I’m doing a lot of conscious work to say, how do I change my vibration and my story around it. I’ve removed myself now from it, I’ve removed the news app from my phone, I don’t look at the news now, it’s not helpful action. I love some suggestions you have Lisa.

You’ve already shared a few, but do you have any other specific tips or tricks or strategies for coping during really tough times? Do you have rituals, or anything you do that the listeners could try themselves?

Tips and strategies for coping during tough times

LISA:

I love self-hypnosis. I have the Harmony app, but you can look them up on YouTube. Here is what will happen for all of us, our habits and our patterns, it’s all coming from our subconscious mind, so  trigger will happen, which trigger responses which then become our thoughts and actions. Our subconscious is 90%, our thinking part is really small, so if you have unresolved trauma around lack, scarcity or illness, it’s going to be coming up for you right now. I don’t want to discount the need for reflection, the need to honour yourself, you don’t need to switch your attention to positivity if you’ve got stuff is coming up for you, that requires loving attention.

But I do love self-hypnosis because it goes straight to the subconscious. You can do them for anything, confidence, reducing fear, healing your body etc, and I do one of those each morning before I check my phone, then when I wake up I put my feet on the ground and say thank you three times. That gets me into a state of grace, there are things to be thankful for and it’s the easiest way to shift your energy, when we are grateful for things.

Something else I teach people all the time, and it’s hard because the women I work with have lost the ability to know what makes them happy, but discovering happiness and what makes them feel good can be a journey. Each day I would ask myself, “what do I need to do today to feel happy, a moment of joy, peace…”. I cultivated peace and calm animist of chaos and that opens up opportunity. If someone told me I had choice, I would say “get lost”, are you a parent, are you going through what I’m going through etc, then I would think, hang on, if I would take this to the max, I could adopt my children out, I could quit my business, it is a choice! But I actually do what to do raise my children, I do want to run my business, so I can’t be a victim because I’m choosing this, so then how do I do this that supports health and happiness. If gives you your power back when you ask those questions.

I’m also a big fan of music shifting a mood. Laughing and proper connecting too. With my children, when Nick died last year, I cancelled all our extra-curricular activities, we’d sit on the couch and I would just be with them talking, holding, touching. All the things that are essential for humans to thrive, except we’ve found ourselves in this hamster wheel of a lifestyle that we feel we can’t get off, but we can.

So these are my go to’s:

• Remind yourself you have choice, it’s the quickest way out of victimhood
• Find things to be grateful for
• Seek out joy and happiness
• Ask yourself what you need to feel peaceful.

CLARE:

So beautiful, I got goosebumps. Coming back to what you said before, isn’t it funny what we are getting told by the planet right now, we are getting forced to stay indoors with our families, reconnect. Maybe there is a lesson in this.

LISA:

The lessons are monumental. For us Aussies, we are going into this a little fatigued, the bushfires were do massive, there has been floods and hail, domestic violence incident in Queensland, and it’s felt like a lot. I see women all the time, if someone gets sick or this all goes on, their self-care falls out the window. Any healthy habits go by the way side, when in fact that’s when you should double down. We all need to double down right now. Don’t buy into the hysteria, take care of yourself. It’s not going to go away, this is a marathon that we have to run, whether we want to or not. How we feel mentally, our mental game is what it is all about. So any tools in your toolbox, use them right now, not fall off, it’s the time to implement.

CLARE:

Again with the self-care, I’m totally guilty of that, when things are busy I fall off the wagon. But it’s such a selfish thing to do, because then I’m not showing up in my best form for my partner and kids.

Last question for today, I’d love to tap into mindset around money. At the moment, there is a lot of fear about how we are going to cope with these challenges, financially. How do you stay upbeat during these times?

Keeping your money mindset upbeat

LISA:

The first thing I always do is tell myself that everything is fine, and always will be fine. Even if it doesn’t feel fine, it’s fine. We moved down to Melbourne and Nick wasn’t working and I didn’t know if my business could support our family, because it hadn’t had to before, and I can remember thinking where to live/rent, and I remember thinking I need to feel abundant even if I can’t see proof of that yet. So we were looking around and I was not feeling it, and I kept thinking, I can’t do it, I don’t know where to be. When I thought about where I wanted to be, I popped it into realestate.com.au and I found the place I am speaking to you from right now. It was more than we’d even spent on rent before. Nick was concerned, but I said it’s going to be ok, and money and energy really, and my energy needs to be up right now. I know if we live in a place that feels good, and I can’t articulate why, but now I know it has everything to do with vibration. If I had gone into a place of scarcity, lack, fear and got a place that was half the price of this in an area I hated, but made logical sense, then I’m pretty sure the business would have followed and been mediocre. I needed to step up and be the million dollar business owner and make decisions that supported that, before the money was in the bank. For some people, they will say that is ridiculous, and will label me as irresponsible with money, but that has been my experience. I think we are magnets and we attract back what we are.

In saying that, I also think, at that particular time, we need to be conscious of cash flow. While I believe in all those universal principles, I also believe in good stewardship of money. From someone who doesn’t have another income earner for my family, it’s my responsibility where the money is coming. We can get into fear around this, or look for opportunities. It’s a time for a pivot. For anyone running an online business, what a beautiful time to be alive and having the reach and capacity to be nimble right now. With money, if I’m ever worried about money, I serve, with my whole heart and lead with love and it always seem to be ok. My biggest subconscious story around money was we always have just enough, but that meant that we always only JUST had enough. I chose a new story was that money piles up for me. When I choose that story, because we all make stories up, we hold onto it and think it’s our reality. We all have these stories though like, rich people are assholes and money is something other people have, but until you shine a light on these limiting stories and call bullshit on them, then choose a new story, then you’ll repeat that same pattern. They say mindset is everything, but it is!

CLARE:

That’s the great thing, you can change your story anytime, but what people don’t know that our stories become our truth, so I help people work out what is our truth and what is our story. Your brain will fight for these stories, and make you think who are you without this money, who would you be if money flowed to you easily, it’s a complete identity shift.

CLARE:

I know I’ll be listing to this episode on repeat. Thank you for joining us, where can people find you and get in contact with you.

LISA:

It’s easy, it’s my name on all the platforms – Lisa Corduff, on Instagram, Facebook and my website is www.lisacorduff.com. And on there also is the waitlist for people to join the “Ready for Change” program, where I’d love to support women to bust their stories.

CLARE:

Thank you so much!

LISA:

Thanks Clare!

CLARE:

Thank you so much for joining me today, if you enjoyed this episode, please make sure you subscribe to receive future episodes, and I’d be so grateful for a review on apple podcast! If you’d like a copy of the show notes or any of the links mentioned today, please jump over to clarewood.com.au/podcast and remember that Clare is spelled CLARE, have a wonderful week and look forward to chatting to you again soon!