Living on Purpose: Get off the hamster wheel, achieve peace of mind, and live with true intention with Special Guest Amy Eliza Wong

Hey guys, I'm Jackie Finneman. I'm a parenting strategist and coach. And after 30 years and with more than 50,000 hours of experience working with kids and families, I promise you there is a solution for your parenting challenges. The key to this parenting gig is to guide and lead your kids with less fear and more confidence. You don't have to know everything to be the expert of your child.

So let's get to the root of what is going on in your home with you and your kiddos. And then we're going to prepare for the worst and change the conversation. You are exactly the parent your child needs and wants, and you are more capable than you sometimes give yourself credit for. I launched the No Problem Parenting Podcast to reach more parents and share the Cliff Notes version on how to solve a variety of parenting problems in the moment as they are happening in your home. Problems are a part of life and they're meant to be dealt with and overcome. So I teach parents how to turn any problem into a no problem. In this podcast, you're going to find down to earth practical, fun, no nonsense, and sometimes best backwards tips and ideas for how to navigate this thing we call parenting. You're going to learn about resources on a variety of parenting topics and increase your rock star parenting moments. We are already a top 2% podcast. The more followers and subscribers and listens that we get, the higher up we rank and the more parents that we're able to reach. All right, for now, let's get into today's topic and meet our next guest. Hey, welcome back. No problem, parents. Today, we're going to talk all things living on purpose. My guest today is Amy Eliza Wong. She is the founder of Always On Purpose. She's an executive leadership coach, author, and facilitator working with organizations such as Salesforce,

Roku, LinkedIn, and more. Amy offers transformative leadership development and cutting-edge communication strategies to executives and corporate teams around the world. Amy's debut book, Living on Purpose, shows readers how to feel more connected to the people around them and be truly satisfied by the life they're leading. In short, she thrives on helping others live and lead on purpose. Amy's on a mission to raise the consciousness of the planet and help others get off that proverbial hamster wheel, achieve peace of mind, and live with true intention. Grab the link in the show notes to get your copy of Living on Purpose today.

All right, Amy, I'm so excited to have you here today. Welcome to the show. Oh, thanks, Jackie. I'm happy to be here. We're going to have fun.

So I really want to just dive right in. You talk about the fundamentals of thriving. You talk about living on purpose, leading on purpose. So this is applicable to both leading on purpose in your home life and your family life, and then also in your work life and getting off that hamster wheel so that you can really achieve peace of mind and live with true intention. So let's just dive right in and start talking about your book and the purpose of it and why you decided to write it. Oh, absolutely. I mean, this, this, this body of work has been in the works for over a decade and it's, I'm just tickled. It's out in the world and having the impact that it is. And I'm excited to dive in. There's so much, I think that your listeners here are going to find a value in. Yeah, absolutely. So you talk in your book, you have five choices.

We won't have time today to get into all of them, but I do want to talk about choice number two. Right, right. Let's do that. So just to let everyone know, so the book is Living on Purpose and the subtitle is Five Deliberate Choices to Realize Fulfillment and Joy. And these five choices, where they came from is, you know, I've been, I've been coaching now since 2010.

So kind of over a decade in the hundreds and hundreds of conversations I've had with parents, with leaders, with, I mean, you name it, all walks of life. It was, it was becoming pretty evident that there were some universal themes and the ways that we hold ourselves back and create suffering for ourselves and, and, and self-imposed limitation. And it just became so obvious. So I really dove in to understand what these five things were.

And I was committed to creating a roadmap for folks to help them out of this. And so one of these choices I am certain is going to help everyone here that's listening because it addresses just straight up the misery that we all feel. And I'm just going to go right to the word guilt, right? All parent guilt, mommy guilt, you name it.

It's something that all of us contend with. I have two children. I just love so much my 15 year old, my 10 year old. And as much as I know about what I know, I still find myself falling into the trap of guilt. And that, I mean, it's just, it's such a, it's such a reality for parents. Wouldn't you agree? Yeah, absolutely. And it's a really hot topic right now. I actually have several clients that are going through this and feeling like they're working parents and they're not home enough or they love their job and they're feeling guilty that they love their job and that they should be home more, you know?

So yeah, it should be. Okay. So here's how this works. I'll just break it down to help people understand what this really is, why it hurts so much and what we can do about it so that we don't suffer, create the self-imposed suffering.

So wouldn't you agree that at the end of the day, everything you want, everything you think you want, it's, it's really not for the thing. you want it because you think it's going to make you feel a certain way. Right? So when you think about it, everything that we want, every goal, every desire, everything that we put on our vision boards, it's not for the number. It's not for the concept. It's not for the accomplishment.

We want these things because we think it's going to make us feel something. So really what we want is a desired feeling. So what I've come to decide is that everyone I encounter, they all just want to feel good. Like I'd be hard pressed to find someone that intentionally wants to feel anxious all the time. It's like, we want to feel good. We have these goals so that we feel good.

So to make this really simple, I'm just going to kind of use some body language here to show you, like, let's imagine that every single emotion that we could feel in the world could be mapped on a vertical scale. Here's neutral right in the middle. So let's imagine all the positive emotions we could feel are above neutral and increasing in positivity. And then all the negative emotions we could feel are below neutral and increasing in negativity. Okay. Now the truth is you, you, we all want to hang out up here above neutral. That's why we want what we want. It's why we do what we do. That's the goal. We don't like being down here. Now down here, guilt is, is far down here. That's, that's an emotion we don't like. And we try to do whatever we can to get back up here.

So here's how this works. Everything below neutral, every single negative emotion below neutral is simply caused by one thing. And when you get this, oh my gosh, it really can be a tremendous game changer. Everything below neutral. And it doesn't matter if it's as mild as apathy or as intense as revenge. Everything below neutral is simply this.

here you are in your reality your now moment and as soon as you resist what is as soon as you push against reality as soon as you resist reality in any way shape or form boom you drop below neutral and to the degree that you push is to the degree that you're negative so i really want this to sink in because some folks are like wait what i'm like well just take a look at this like anything that's stressing you out anything that's causing you negativity anything that is causing you to be below neutral just notice how it's not the thing it's your relationship to the thing you're pushing against it and so so for some folks are like, wait, and I'm like, no, it's the thing. And I'll say, it's easy to, to fall into that trap to think it's, it's the stuff out there that causes our negativity. No, it's our relationship to the stuff out there. And so that's just what's going on. And if, if it's helpful, I'll just give this brief example. I was just going to ask you for one. I was going to say, Hey, let's, let's put this in context. Totally. So let's talk about commuter traffic, right? Commuter traffic. Now Now that is, you know, sometimes I'll be in a room and I'll pull folks.

I'm like, how many of you like commuter traffic? No one raises their hands, right? But yeah, it's like, well, how do you feel in commuter traffic? It's like annoyed, frustrated, just angry, angst, whatever it might be.

So it's easy to think, okay, it's traffic that causes me to feel frustrated. Traffic is the cause. And I say, no, no, it's not traffic. Traffic is just traffic.

but the moment you push against the traffic, you've, you drop below neutral. And that causes your frustration to the degree that you push us to the degree that you're negative. But you might say, Jackie, you might say, hold on, hold on. In what universe does someone not push against traffic? It's got to just be traffic. And I'll say, well, let's think about it this way. Let's imagine here you are, it's Friday and you're at the office or you're somewhere and you hop in your car and you're feeling good. And all of a sudden you're like, Oh no, I just remembered. I totally agreed and promised my partner that I would go to his colleagues Tupperware party tonight.

I hate this person and I don't like Tupperware at all. This is the last thing I want to do on a Friday night. And so you get in the car and you're all like, Oh, and you're feeling below neutral because you're pushing against this idea. But then you get up in the freeway, they get up on the freeway and all of a sudden bumper to bumper traffic and all these accidents, unfortunately. But you see that your ways tells you, oh, you're going to, you're going to miss it.

You're going to, so now you're like, and you're doing a dance in your car and you're like, I can listen to podcasts. I can listen to music. I can call my mom. I can do, can catch up on all that stuff. And I have missed this event that I do not want to go to.

Right. So traffic now makes you feel happy. So you can see it's our relationship to the stuff that's going to determine how we feel. And so when it comes to guilt, guilt happens when we are choosing something then, but pushing against it. And so as a parent, as a, when we've got, we've got lives. Like I work, I know you work, a lot of us parents work, but then we feel guilty about that. And so we have to sometimes ask, okay, let's just look at this very logically.

Are you prepared to leave your job? Are you in a position where you would leave so that you have nothing but time for your child? And most people would say, no. And I'd say, and in given any situation, would you choose the job you're having? For those of us that love our jobs, We would say, yeah, I would choose this.

Like, okay, so what's happening here is you are making a choice and actively pushing against it, which does nothing for you. It just, it does two things. It keeps you below neutral, which is not what you want. You want to be up above neutral.

But here's the bigger thing, Jackie, and this is what I try to help folks see, is that when we actively resist what is consciously or unconsciously, we're eating up our own resources for creativity, for connection, for innovation, because guess what? As I push, this is resistance and that's eating up energy. That's eating up bandwidth. And so I'll use this visual analogy here. So I don't know if you've got a video version of this.

I don't. And that's going to be, so we can just describe it though. That's right. I'll just describe it. So I've got this water pitcher that I use throughout the day to fill up my glass and it's fairly heavy. It's right here on my desk. And it's about two thirds full of water. It's this big glass water pitcher. Now this is fairly heavy. I would say this is probably about five pounds. Now let's just imagine that this water pitcher represents the weight.

This represents all the resistance I'm sustaining. So for example, I didn't wake up early enough to do yoga. You know, I'm mad at my kid for, you know, not taking out the trash. I'm upset that I ate too much cheese last night. I'm mad at my husband for not having, you know, whatever it might be. All the resistance, all the stuff I'm pushing against, right? Let's imagine that this weight represents all the resistance I'm sustaining, okay? Sustaining resistance while trying to live your life, which most of us do. That's like me holding this water pitcher out to the side while I'm trying to have this conversation with you. Now, can I have this conversation with you?

Sure. But this is kind of heavy and this is distracting. And as I continue to hold this out and continue to sustain resistance, the less and less resources I have to be connected with you, to be eloquent, to be ingenious, to be helpful, to be empathetic, to be present. And that's the thing. When we actively push against what is and sustain guilt, we are keeping ourselves from the exact resources we need to tap in to be present in those moments when we are with our children. And it just, it doesn't work for us. One of the things that I teach is you need to create your norm and you need to be confident in what your norm is for your home. And when you are, your kids feel more totally relaxed. They feel more confident themselves. They feel like this is just the way it is. So when you know, you're not going to make the event because you're working and you love your job, instead of like apologizing in a, in a sympathetic way to your kids that you're going to miss their game, you can reframe that and you can change the way you respond to that and say, Oh, I'm so glad that, you know, Stacy's mom is going to be at the game because she's going to take some video for me so that I can see you, you know, while I'm, I can watch it later because I'm going to be at work and I'm so excited for you to have, like, we can just totally change the way that conversation goes instead of, Oh honey, I'm so sorry. I can't make

your game. I have to work. Right. Because what happens is that tone right there is one under the neutral line. Right. And that's, and that's, and that, that does nothing other than create suffering and misery for everyone. Because what's happening is you're actively choosing to be at your work. And it might be that you don't even have a choice. So you might say, well, I'm not choosing it. I have to, I'm like, well, that's fine. That's just what is, are you prepared to change what is no, I have to be at work. Okay. So embrace that and accept it fully. And the, But the moment you accept it and then make yourself wrong for it, make your judge yourself, wish it were different.

That's when you've dropped below neutral. Now your emotional tone is going to absolutely influence the emotional tone of your child. Right. This is, we are emotional beings and we, we are, our emotions are contagious and whatever we embody, we're going to share that with our children.

Yes. And even if we don't, even if we don't share it with words, our kids are sponges and they know they can feel that there's that connection and that vibe. And so, yeah, definitely it does affect our kiddos in that way. And so I, of course, you know, me, my, my whole thing is creating confidence in parents so that we can be that competent leader, but also our kids then are more confident. So there is that whole thing. I have to work. Well, technically you don't, there are choices around that. And if you're saying, no, Jackie, you don't understand it.

We wouldn't have money if I didn't work. Exactly. There are still choices. If you don't have my, I mean, options, if you don't have money, you know, they're not great options.

They're not what we would choose, what we would, how we would want to live. So again, reframing that and being like, you know, in order to provide for our house and be able to have you in sports or, you know, those kinds of things I get to work so that you can do those things. Right. Well, essentially what you're talking about is just at the heart of being on purpose.

Cause that's what this is all about is the art and the science of being on purpose. and what that means is we we have this incredible superpower called choice and we get to choose and to be on purpose in the way i speak about it in the way i've written about it it's not so much choice at the level of action it's choice at the level of perception it's both but here it's we get to choose and if we want to look at this and break it down so that it's applicable it's easy it's practicable. We take this moment by moment. And so for those folks that say, I have to work and I don't have a choice, I would simply say, I honor that. And let's just look at this right now.

In this now moment, do you want to make a different choice? I would like to. Okay, then let's do that. Well, I can't. Okay. Well, all right. So, okay. So we got to really look at this.

I want to make a different choice, but I'm not going to. That is causing suffering. So let's go back to this. Are you prepared to make a different choice right now in this moment? No.

Okay. So now embrace it. You're choosing this. It does not serve you to choose it and push against it. So choose it right now and right now and right now and check in with it. And then let's say two weeks from now, two years from now, if you decide, you know what, I'm prepared to make a different choice, then we embrace that and we move forward. But to choose something and want it to be different to choose something and judge it. This just causes guilt. I mean, it just causes us to drop below neutral, whatever those emotions are, whether it's anxiety, frustration, guilt, fear, misery, any of that is simply because of our, our tendency to push. So if it's helpful, I'm just going to break. This is how we resist. Yeah. I love this. That's one of the things I talk about in no problem. Parenting is resistance creates resistance. Oh, totally. And so this is my jam. So resistance, you know, as I've talked about with the traffic, that's over resistance and that's easy to catch, right? So for example, if, if I just vacuumed the house and my amazing dog that you met earlier, if he walks through and now there's dog hair everywhere and I'm like,

I'm all frustrated because I just vacuumed, right? That's overt resistance. It's here. I don't want it. I'm pushing against boom. Now I'm, I'm, I'm annoyed, right? Purely that's easy to catch, But here's how we resist. When we look to the past and we push against the past, that's regret, right? When we look to the future and we push against imagined future states, that's anxiety, right? So we resist in present moment, overt resistance, past regret, future anxiety.

Okay. Here's another way. Anytime we judge, when judgment, now what is judgment? Judgment is a pushing against of either one of three things.

What do we judge? We judge self, we judge others, or we judge circumstance. And that right there is one of the most insidious ways that we resist, judgment. If I'm holding a judgment of myself, essentially I'm pushing against myself.

If I'm holding a judgment against you, I am pushing against you. And in a bigger conversation that I break down fully in the book is one of the most sneaky ways that we resist. And the hallmark indicator that we are resisting is the word should. I should be different. You should be different. This should be different. And here it is. Guess what? There is no way things should be. There is no way things should be. Should is, in my opinion, the worst word in the English language because should implies that there is some fixed reality outside of ourselves that represents the standard ideal.

And if you're going to be the good parent, the right parent, the perfect parent, the good mom, the good wife, the have the good life, you got to do it just like this. It doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. I say it in my course too. We need to stop shooting on ourselves.

Yeah. And what, what I've done and particularly in the book and where I got, where I've gotten I'm extremely curious. There's been no rigorous study on why should is so bad. Why is it that should is, you know, less than ideal?

It makes us feel obligated. It makes us feel burdened. I go so far as to say, I think it's the worst word in the English language. Well, there's been no formal study on it, but I will give you my hypothesis and the framework.

And here it is. Should represents resistance. What's happening is that we've tricked ourselves. When we use the word should, we've tricked ourselves into thinking that we're focused on creating what we want, the stuff that's above the neutral line.

But if I use the word should, and I use this example a lot, I should go to the gym. I mean, how many times did you say that? I should go work out, right? Now notice how that feels.

It's heavy. It's burdensome. It's guilt. It's not great.

It's definitely not where I want to be. It's below the neutral line. I want to be above the neutral line. So now you have to ask, well, should according to what's going on here?

Well, here's what's going on. Should, if I'm using the word should, I should go to the gym. I am not at all focused on what I want. I'm not focused on health and flexibility and strength.

I am not focused on the things that I want. In fact, when I use the word should, what I'm focused on is facing all the stuff I don't want and I'm pushing against it to get it away from me. And that right there, we are using resistance to get ahead. So if I say I should go to the gym, what I'm focused on unconsciously, oh, I feel pudgy. Oh, I feel stiff. Oh, I feel, and I'm judging myself. I'm pushing against the negative consequences. Now here's where it gets a little squirrely. As I push against the negative consequences. I move in the direction of what I want because I'm pushing it away from me in the direction of what I want, but it comes at a great cost. And so I really break it down in the book,

but for those that are listening, you can tell, and one of the best ways to check that you have got unnecessary resistance that's keeping you below neutral and eating up your resources is the word should. So the powerful pivot is to immediately catch the should, and pivot to, well, what do I want? What, what will I do instead? And so, you know, what I ended up finding myself saying is I should spend more time with my kids. Wait, nope, nope, nope, no should. What do I want? You know what? I want to feel connected. I want to feel present. And so I immediately, no, you know what? I will be present when I am with them.

I will have my phone off. And even just saying, I want to be, I want to spend more time with my, my kids. You can still, even just saying that I want to spend more time is like a motivator, right? That's a totally different frame that's going to give you all the resources for creativity and innovation to actually make that happen. But when you push against it and say, I should be spending more time with their kids, it just keeps us below neutral and trapped. Right. I love it. That's the, that's one of my three words that I, um, correct myself if I happen to use them, um, in a sentence ever it's should, can't, and try.

we need to we need to get those out of the dictionary like i said i love it i love it so you know what a really powerful replacement is uh and there was a study on this one this came out in 2018 replace could for should and it will generate more moral insight and creative solutions so you're like i could have had versus i should have had yeah that's interesting so it's great for brainstorming and innovating parents you know we're doing we are doing the most sacred and important job in the world. And I just invite all of us to just honor that and be more easy with ourselves because we're doing it and that's to be celebrated. Yeah. I love that. Working parents, parents out there that are just feeling like you're in that hamster wheel and you're not sure how to get off and how to stop. And you know, there's something more that you're called to do.

You're just not sure how to start or where to start. I really highly recommend that you reach out to Amy. The book living on purpose is the roadmap to really, truly claim the life you were born to live and spells out. I mean, essentially answers everything you just said. All right, parents. So go out and get to Amy's book, living on purpose. And if you're looking for an engaging speaker, reach out to Amy. Amy, I know we'll be connecting more in the future. Um, I'm just thankful that you were here. Thanks for being on the show. Thank you so much.

all right parents that's it for today make sure you head over to the website no problem parents.com sign up to get our emails we're going to be giving away tips tools techniques and resources updates on podcast episodes roundtable events and more check out no problem parents.com for now hugs and high fives you got this digital audio health by cymatrax you