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. Hello, my friend, and welcome to another episode.
Penny Casselman [00:00:50]:
I'm so glad you've joined me. Before I start, I just wanted to say thank you to some more people who have left a glowing review on Apple Podcasts. And I just wanted to take a moment and read some of the kind words. The first one comes from Alisa. She writes a joy and a wonder. I'm so enjoying Penny's wise and playful episodes as she shows me the road to living my best life. Her bite sized reflections on creating your world and your happiness are truly a pleasure and leave you wanting more. More insights, more wisdom, and more clarity cocktails, please.
Penny Casselman [00:01:33]:
A worthy listen for anyone who wants to hear the tough stuff while feeling safe in the hands of this been there, done that bestie. You know she cares, and you know she can make a mean beverage. The best of all worlds. Cheers. Yes. I love your spirit of playfulness. Thank you so much, Alisa, for your kind review. Absolutely do I like a mean cocktail when appropriate.
Penny Casselman [00:02:05]:
And wait a minute, isn't it 5 o'clock somewhere? Okay. The next one comes from Kate, and she writes, love, Penny. I loved your confidence episode. And for those of you, if you wanna check it out, it's number 18. Great tips that are also easily actionable rather than just theoretical. Also, you're such an amazing speaker, Kate. Kate, thank you so much. I so appreciate that you took the time to write a review on Apple Podcasts.
Penny Casselman [00:02:38]:
Thank you so much, my friend, and I'm so thrilled that you found benefit in that confidence episode. I hope that you have armfuls of that now moving forward in your life. So with that, let's dive in and talk about success, shall we? If you don't know what success looks like for you, you will never get there, said me, and I'm sure some other very wise people. But before I get too far down the rabbit hole with this topic, I first want to acknowledge that there are many aspects to success. When I think of success, my default goes straight to money and financial success. I'm sure if I noodle noodled on this long enough, I would know why that is. I like nice things. One of my love languages is gift giving.
Penny Casselman [00:03:39]:
And so although gifts can be free, I e spend time with someone, etcetera. I like to literally give gifts as an expression of my gratitude, my love, my appreciation. So maybe that's why when I think success, it goes straight to money. However, there are so many other aspects of our lives. Think personal education, career, health, lifestyle, meaning, what do you do for vacation? What do you do for hobbies? And then relationships, whether they be personal relationships, family relationships, all areas of our life have some measure of success attached to them. My friend, if you don't know what success looks like for you in any of those given areas, you will never get there. You will never feel fulfilled in that realm of your life. So stay with me here.
Penny Casselman [00:04:39]:
But have you ever been asked, what do you wanna eat? And you respond with, I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. I have no idea what I wanna eat, which when I think about it, that's not really true. You know what you wanna eat. There might be 3 things that are stopping you from actually verbalizing what it is you really want. 1st is that you were just totally not paying attention. Someone asked you, what do you wanna eat? And you're like, I don't know because you were playing a game on your phone or reading a book or watching TV or any other amount of distractions that you weren't fully present, hearing, and able to respond to the person who asked the question.
Penny Casselman [00:05:25]:
Second reason you might say, I don't know, is our brain already knows the answer, but we don't want to share it. Perhaps when they asked, what do you want to eat? You wanted to say a fresh container of cookie dough. Full stop. Not cooked directly from the freezer or fridge. Side note, I've never done that. I've never eaten raw cookie dough, so I don't know if it's supposed to be in the fridge or freezer. But, anyway, maybe you're not being honest. You don't wanna say, hey.
Penny Casselman [00:05:59]:
What do you wanna eat? Cookie dough? Okay. So instead, you say, I don't know, saving everybody and yourself any disparaging comments. Now the third reason that you might respond, I don't know, is because we don't want to exert the mental energy and would rather just turn over what happens to somebody else so we don't have to make the choice. I would say any of those three scenarios really are not ideal. Right? 1, if you're not paying attention, it just causes frustration with the person asking and then you being annoyed because they're asking. The second one, if your brain already knows the answer and you're afraid to say it, that's not honoring what you really want. And the third thing, do you really wanna give all of your power away to someone else when making a choice? I find that hard to believe. As we continue to move through this episode, I want you to stop saying, I don't know.
Penny Casselman [00:07:06]:
Now I know I just used the example of what do you wanna eat, but let's explore this in the context of what does success look like for you. I don't want you saying, I don't know, and I want you to start creating a vision for a phenomenal future. It's time for a clarity cocktail. Time is a companion that goes with us on a journey. It reminds us to cherish each moment because it will never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we have lived. Jean Luc Picard. Oh, yes.
Penny Casselman [00:07:56]:
I did just quote a Star Trek next generation character. Yeah. If you were wondering, sci fi is my preferred genre when it comes to books, movies, TV shows. I digress. But I picked this not just because Jean Luc Picard shared it with us, because it brings clarity to the idea that every moment will never come again ever in the same way with the same surroundings, with the same people, atmosphere, you name it. You get one shot at the moment you're in. And we especially love that he says, what we leave behind is not as important as how we have lived. Because what you leave behind, yes, is a legacy.
Penny Casselman [00:08:50]:
Yes, goes to other people. Yes can benefit generations beyond the ones you are fortunate enough to grace the earth with. However, how sad if you're not living fully expressed life. Let me read this again. Time is a companion that goes with us on a journey. It reminds us to cherish each moment because it will never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we have lived. Jean Luc Picard, beam me up.
Penny Casselman [00:09:25]:
No. I'm just kidding. No. But I hope you can see in that quote that every moment we have is so precious, is only here for our enjoyment once, and we should make every effort in our day, in our week, with our friends, with our families, with complete strangers. Make it the best, most beautifully expressed version that it can be. Because although you can leave a legacy, depriving yourself from beauty and awe would be a shame. So live it. And dare I say, pick up a red marker and go make something magical happen in your life.
Penny Casselman [00:10:14]:
And now back to the episode. Cheers. Circling back to defining what success is to you. I'm in a vacation mindset this week. I am so close to taking a trip somewhere warm, somewhere inviting. I will tell you about it when I return, but I am in full focus, get stuff done around the house so that I can go on vacation and chill. So when thinking about this vacation mindset, I hopped over to the Google machine and pulled up some studies and was blown away by some of these statistics. I absolutely need to share them with you.
Penny Casselman [00:11:03]:
In 2023, they did a study that found in the 45 days leading up to your departure date, you will spend 5 hours looking at things to do, looking at pictures, looking at activities, planning what you're gonna wear, everything involved with a vacation, you will spend 5 hours in 45 days getting ready. It may not sound like a lot, but it's all in perspective. Right? So hang on. They also found that the average person spends 200 hours a year daydreaming about vacation. 2 100 hours a year. That blew my mind. Do I might have smoke coming out of my ears right now. I'm not sure, but I was stunned by that.
Penny Casselman [00:11:57]:
And then when you're on vacation, a study found that you'll take 48 minutes to plan your next day. So you are on vacation. You are actively on the boat, in the tent, on the beach, in the mountain, wherever it is that you choose to vacation. You're in it, and you will take 48 minutes to plan your next day vacation when you're on it. My friends, all of these statistics blew my mind. Because when is the last time you spent 5 hours or even 48 minutes to plan your life, to plan for success. I'm trying to get better at that myself. There is no shade being thrown from this girl.
Penny Casselman [00:12:53]:
K? But think about it. We spend all this time planning an escape from the life we're living that we will devote 5 hours or 48 minutes or 200 hours in a year thinking about vacation. Now isn't your life worth at least the same amount of time as you plan a vacation? Years ago, I was sitting in the atrium where I worked at a little cafe table with some colleagues, and we were tasked with drafting a letter to our customers explaining new process that we needed them to adapt and learn in order to continue to use our product. And we sat there probably for a good 10 minutes, and we just we could not make headway on what we wanted to say. And, thankfully, someone wiser than myself piped up and said, okay, guys. We're gonna just stop working on this, and we are gonna write a letter to our customers of everything we don't want them to do. And I sat there, crunched my face up, and thought, is this really gonna work? Like, this sounds cuckoo. But what happened was, first, we had a lot of fun.
Penny Casselman [00:14:18]:
Okay? Because we knew, first, many of the pitfalls that these customers were gonna have in trying to transition to this new thing we were doing. So we we were having fun. We were like, yes. Please don't click that button once and wait. Please click it 10 times and then refresh the page. Or don't look at the big green button that says go, give up, and walk away. We had a lot of fun coming up with this letter to these customers about everything they should not do. But what was interesting is that it gave us so much clarity around what we really needed them to do.
Penny Casselman [00:15:02]:
And so I share this with you because I think this is something that can be simply applied to defining what success is for you. So let's think of a scenario where someone says and we'll use a career as the segment of life that we're gonna talk about. If someone said, Penny, what kind of leader do you want to be? Maybe my first response would be, I don't know. Not sure. And maybe I have some inkling of what I would want to be, but I can guarantee you throughout my corporate career and my educational background, I can give you a laundry list of things I don't want to be. Yes. Let me be a leader who nods their head and doesn't listen and then does what they wanna do anyway. Or, yes, I want to be the type of leader who has to know where you are every minute of every day.
Penny Casselman [00:16:04]:
I know when you start making a list of all the things that you don't want that would not equal success for you, you can have a whole bunch of fun just like we sat there and made that letter to the customers. That was ridiculous. But in doing that, it helped us clarify what we really did want. And I think the same can be true in any area of your life. If you are struggling with family relationships, well, what is it that you don't want? Make a list. I bet that will give you some clarity as to what then would equal success. And there you have it, my friend. My backwards way of moving you forward into more success in your life.
Penny Casselman [00:16:55]:
I hope that this sparked some ahas for you. And as always, I would love to hear what those are. I would love to hear how you define success. What are some things that you have done that have helped you clarify what success looks like in your life? Let me know. Shoot me an email. You know, I love to hear from you. And with that, my friend, this girl is gonna go think about what she's putting in her suitcase, and you go think about what success means to you. Until next week, don't forget your sunscreen.
Penny Casselman [00:17:35]:
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 Podcasts. 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 first move to pivot with passion.
