Penny Casselman [00:00:08]:
Welcome to the Pivot with Passion podcast. Hi. I'm Penny Casselman. I believe everyone is deserving of a phenomenal life, and that life starts when you grab a red marker and claim what you truly desire. Regardless of where you came from, where you're at, or where you think you're headed. Life is what you make of it. And when you learn to pivot with passion, your world explodes with opportunities. Go grab your favorite beverage, and let's shake things up as we explore how to pivot with passion.
Penny Casselman [00:00:46]:
Hello. Hello, my friend. Guess what? Today, I mailed out the 1st batch of red markers to each person who has reviewed the podcast thus far. Woo woo. Are you one of those people? If yes, be sure to keep your eyes on your mailbox. And if not, what? Don't panic. There is still time for you to get your hands on a free red marker moment marker. That's right.
Penny Casselman [00:01:20]:
This offer of a free marker extends through the end of January 2024. So there are still 2 weeks left for you to hop over to your platform of choice, mine is Apple Podcast, and leave a review of the show. All the details are in the show notes, and I look forward to addressing an envelope to you in the near future. Today's topic, I wanted to dive into the idea that success is a choice. It's not magical. It is not luck. You choose success. Now there are a couple layers to this that I wanna explore, but the first one is, what is success? Because for each one of us, it's different.
Penny Casselman [00:02:12]:
It could be tied to money or time or family, but whatever you decide that is for you is correct. Isn't that awesome? One area in your life where you are always 100% guaranteed to be correct, and that is how you define success. I can't think of another place in life where that might apply, so grab it for all it's worth. Understanding what success is to you. You might be thinking a couple things. 1, gee, I've never thought about exactly what success means to me, or you may already be successful in an area, or 3, maybe you've just given it no thought ever. But once you do land on what success look like for you, and let's say there are some areas that you want to achieve more success, one of the questions you'll have to ask is, what do you have to support you? And then the follow-up question is, what do you need to support you. And both of those, what do you have, what do you need, those are tied to things like time, money, knowledge, influence, connections, and talents.
Penny Casselman [00:03:32]:
So today, I wanna explore where success shows up for you, and how you can maintain focus and go after every ounce of success that you can envision. It's time for a clarity cocktail. I'll be the 1st to admit that I am a wimp when it comes to spicy foods. Although I do hear as you get older, your tolerance for spicy food goes up, so maybe there's still hope for me yet, but that's how success works. Just like your palate, just like cooking for your palate. It's only got to make sense for you and no one else. You see, success is like cooking. Now I will say it is nothing like baking.
Penny Casselman [00:04:36]:
Baking is very scientific. There are molecular principles that cause reactions things that produce textures and qualities like crusty bread with an airy middle or a creamy cheesecake Fort Chewy chocolate chip cookies. Are you hungry now? Sorry. But everything is exacting. You have a recipe, and if you follow it exactly, it will produce the desired outcome. Unfortunately, success is nothing like that. There is no one recipe for success in any area of your life. If there was a recipe for success, everyone around you would be successful, and I would be out of a podcasting job.
Penny Casselman [00:05:32]:
Makes sense, though? When you look at cooking, it is so much more forgiving and very tailored to what tastes good to you. Unlike baking, cooking is all about experimentation. Finding a recipe that you like, you have the liberty to tweak the amounts of things you put in or add some things that you really like. In baking, if it had called for 2 cups of sugar and half a cup of oil, and instead you did 2 cups of oil and half a cup of sugar. Oh, I am not quite sure what kind of slimy mess of food you'd be ending up with. Bunting cooking. Might end up with kind of a slimy mess, but to your palate, it might taste okay. That might be a slight extreme example of what happens if you don't follow instructions, but there's no one right way of getting the desired results when it comes to cooking.
Penny Casselman [00:06:32]:
And you can try again and again and again. And in fact, you can't fail when cooking. What you produce might not be ideal. It may not be something you ever want to eat again. However, you'll refine what you're looking for. You will refine the ingredients you add and how you ultimately prepare what you're making. And with cooking, just like success. You can go round and round this process until you finally find the combination of things, tastes approaches that work for you.
Penny Casselman [00:07:14]:
So my friend, you can go make your chili as hot as you want, but just know that I'll simply be standing on the side eating a piece of plain cornbread. And now back to the episode. Cheers. Circling back to the idea of success being a choice, one of the situations I encounter is when people try something once and it doesn't work, then they start thinking, well, I tried, which leaves them feeling, well, I gave it my best, wasn't meant to be, which in turn leads them down a path of settling for fine. You know? I tried. It didn't work. I'm fine. Here's the thing.
Penny Casselman [00:08:02]:
It's no wonder that we do this. I tried to find some specific research on this, and what I found is it's very topic specific. But in looking at all the different ways that settling for fine has been sliced and diced. The average pretty much comes up to 60% of people say they're fine with how things are. That is over half the population. And, oh, yeah, I've been guilty of that too. But no more, my friend, because who holds the red marker? Say it with me. You hold the red marker.
Penny Casselman [00:08:40]:
I hold the red marker. And I gotta tell you, if something's not fine, I'm pulling it out. But here's the question. What is success. Think about it. Can you clearly articulate to a stranger what a successful life means to you? Yes, no, maybe. Like I mentioned at the top of the episode, you might be thinking, 1, I've never thought about what a successful life looks like or maybe you're absolutely fine with how everything is, or 3, maybe you honestly have given it no thought. I wanted to offer you an approach that you could use if you're looking for some clarity around what is success for you.
Penny Casselman [00:09:28]:
Now what I'm about to say might sound silly, but it's very valuable. And that is this. Write down what it looks like to have a boring, mediocre, non successful life. I want you to write down the complete opposite of what a successful life looks for you. As much as I poo poo corporate America. I will say this is one approach that I learned from my time working there. There were a couple of us that were tasked to come up with instructions for our customers, and there were numerous problems with what we were looking at. And we just kept coming up with ideas that didn't quite feel right, weren't really hitting the mark.
Penny Casselman [00:10:14]:
And after about 10 minutes, Someone in our group said, okay. We're gonna stop. We're gonna write instructions to our customer of everything we don't want them to do. 1st, we had a lot of fun doing that. But second, it helped bring clarity to what we wanted them to do because we were very opinionated about what we didn't want them to do. So approaching that opposite way of thinking, if I were to do it right now, I'll just throw something out there. A boring, mediocre, non successful life for me looks like I'm working 4 jobs. I'll never be able to retire.
Penny Casselman [00:11:01]:
I walk everywhere because I don't have a car. I'm missing teeth because they're rotting out of my head. Now, okay. That might be a little extreme, but you see where I'm going here. Go big or go home with this exercise because the more detail, the more insights of what you don't want will help you clarify what you do want. And some of the things that you might uncover in the what does a boring, mediocre, non successful life look like might surprise you actually when you go revisit them because the next step after you write this opposite is address each item that you called out and turn it instead to its successful counterpart. If we take what I just shared, my successful life would look like, I'm working 1 job at most. I'll be able to retire early.
Penny Casselman [00:12:04]:
I'll have the car of my dreams. My teeth will remain pearly white. I just have to laugh. I have no idea why missing teeth came up as an example. I've never had a problem with my teeth, but interesting that my brain came up with it. So we're just going with it, but you see where I'm going. And if you are hungry for more inspiration, enthusiasm to find success in your life. Make your success vision so detailed that a stranger could see the same thing.
Penny Casselman [00:12:46]:
So, again, we'll use my example. If I say I'm working 1 job or less, getting even more granular with that. I'm working 1 job from anywhere in the world. I am not location dependent. I'll be able to retire when I'm 55. And if I want, never have to work another day. Do you see how just those 2 examples with additional detail make it so much richer and clearer so that if I did tell a stranger, they would fully understand exactly what success looks like for me. Once you've created this idea of success and mapped out a picture of what it looks like to you, venue move on to these last 2, but also important questions.
Penny Casselman [00:13:38]:
What do you have to support you, and what do you need to support you, and bonus points if after that second question you also ask, is that true? A lot of pushback that occurs when you are going after success, regardless of what that looks like in your life, is that you might say, I need more money. I need more education. I need x. But ask yourself, is that true? Because I'm guessing if you really had to, you could find both of those things in your orbit right now. My friend, I want you to hold on to the idea that success is a choice, and that choice is in your hands. Every single day, every single moment, you make choices, and those choices can take you closer to success or lead you further away. And y'all know I believe every single person deserves a phenomenal life. Whether or not you can see that yet, I hold that vision for you.
Penny Casselman [00:14:55]:
You are capable of achieving every bit of success that you want. And as we went through the episode today, lean on what we talked about. Lean on creating that vision for yourself. Lean into the fact that success is like cooking. You're going to experiment. You're gonna have times where some just didn't work out right, but it doesn't mean that you've failed. It means that you've learned and you're going to try tweaking your approach to help move you to that crystal clear vision you've painted for yourself. I believe in you, my friend.
Penny Casselman [00:15:36]:
I want everyone to pick up the red marker and go make the balance of this week phenomenal. Friend, thanks for listening to this episode of Pivot with Passion. If you've been feeling stuck, exhausted or frustrated? This is your permission slip to go grab a red marker and claim the life you desire and deserve. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend, and then hop over to rate and review the show on Apple Podcast because my goal is to put a red marker in everyone's hand, and I need your help to spread the word and make that happen. Until the next episode, go grab a red marker. Get excited for your future and make your 1st move to pivot with passion.
